He Who Searches For Himself
by Yuuki Hikari
Summary: Standing up and moving forwards feels a lot more like picking yourself up and trudging onwards. Continuation of FMA1 where Ep51 finishes. Alt ending, not based on CoS. Plot!Fic. All characters. Please enjoy!
1. Trains in Opposite Directions

**He Who Searches for Himself**

**By:** Yuuki Hikari  
**Date:** 2004-10-12  
**Status:** Ongoing

**Genre: **Post FMA1 Plot!Fic. Series exclusive, not CoS based.**  
Characters: **Everyone from the first series who survived to ep 51, some necessary OCs because the villain count was low, and then some extras for character development. The fic does lack Psiren - she couldn't swindle her way into this.

**Foreword:**

This story is based off of the first FullMetal Alchemist anime (2003/2004). It picks up where Episode 51 leaves off (I marked the first chapter as 52). I began writing this fanfic before the FMA movie, and any details pertaining to the movie, had been released. Because of that, it is written entirely independent from the Conqueror of Shamballa.

**Author's Preface:**

This story was my very first fanfic, it has existed for almost as long as I've been in the fandom and it got pretty big. I've done minor editing to chapters 1 and 2 because they were terrifying at times (new writer and all) but on the whole I've left them rough around the edges. I've been told that there's a flow and a charm to watching how the writing style in my fic has evolved over the years. AmunRa was kind enough to volunteer her betaing services at chapter 8 :) thank her for making me a better writer!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 52 - Trains in Opposite Directions**

"Al!" Izumi barked from a rickety wooden bench she occupied, "Get back from there!" her narrowed expression locked into a disapproving frown.

"It's fine! I just wanted to take a closer look!" Al called back, placing a hand on the cold, metal side of the train engine. His voice lowered as he spoke to himself, "I've seen them go by many times, but these ones are so different," his eyes were still 'new' – fresh with youth and full of renewed life most days. He laughed lightly as a thought crossed his mind, _'Maybe this is what I get for spending so much time with Winry!'_ He pressed the tips of his fingers harder against the cold steel, his lips curling in amusement, _'She'll be jealous when I tell her I was close and personal with the latest engines coming out of Central.'_

Izumi slapped her hands down to her knees, standing up sharply, "you'll have your ticket taken away if you don't get yourself behind the white line, _now_!" It didn't matter if the statement was entirely true or not, her commanding voice made it so and that's all that mattered, since it got the boy to scamper backwards. It was too nice of a day to have anything else go wrong.

Alphonse straightened his pale-green, button-down shirt with a sharp tug. It was a bit too disconcerting to think just how much trouble he'd be in if someone took his ticket away twenty minutes before they were going to board. His teacher didn't have to say anything to him; Alphonse knew well enough that she hadn't been happy when their train pulled into the station just a bit too late. From the delays that ensued, the pair had been forced to wait for a nine o'clock departure that evening. He wasn't interested in exacerbating the travel issues any further.

Turning away from the train, Alphonse ran back up the platform stairs; his feet leaving a dull thump on each wooden plank. Shuffling his feet as he finished his ascent, the boy looked up sheepishly into his teachers stern expression, "The trains traveled by all the time, but we always stayed away from the tracks. Mom said it wasn't safe. It's different here, I wanted to have a look."

'We' was, by default, still Edward and Alphonse Elric.

Izumi shook her head as she let the air in her lungs slowly escape through her nostrils. Rolling her shoulders, she sat back down onto the paint-peeled, wooden bench, "It's the same train that parks in Rizembool for thirty minutes ever twelve hours."

Al's eyes widened in protest, "But there's only one track going through Rizembool Station! There's…" he spun on his toes and scampered to the railing of the platform - it hung as a canopy over the tracks below, "... two in here, and there are more outside! The platforms are huge, there's a roof overhead and floor is concrete. It's nothing like the old wooden one in Rizembool!"

Izumi stared at him for a moment before choking back a laugh and speaking under her breath, "Boys… I don't know what I'd do with you if you were a gir-"

She stopped, startled by a sense that would turn on like a red alarm in the back of her mind whenever someone was watching. Izumi's gaze drifted to her left, searching for what set her off. Finally, she caught a fair face and a pair of eyes that quickly vanished behind the dark hair of a young girl fidgeting on an adjacent bench. She watched her for a few moments as her hands nervously wove in and out of her skirt ends. Frowning, Izumi dismissed the peering girl, leaned back in the bench and closed her eyes. Children are innocent enough.

The metal roof over the train station was both a blessing and a curse. It was kind enough to keep the sun out. Spring was in full swing and summer was threatening to show up a little early. The traveling pair would admit to themselves that they were each a little cranky and overtired, having barely slept in the bouncy overnight train ride, and to have been stuck outside under the sun on a clear, bright day just wasn't very appealing. Then again, the metal roof did a fantastic job of trapping the daytime heat and roasting the protected contents like a slow cooking oven. At least there was a semi-potent draft.

The exhaustion from the sleepless night caused time to skip and in what felt like mere moments after her eyes had fallen the boarding call came over the broadcast system. The shrill noise jolted Izumi's attention and she pulled herself uncomfortably to her feet. She put a hand to the back of her tense and sore neck, giving a shout out for Alphonse. The child's voice echoed back and she could hear his distinct footsteps pounding along the platform towards her. Reaching for the luggage dumped at her feet, Izumi once again took notice of the teenage girl, this time she headed down the staircase towards the train's platform. The teacher could only puzzle over it, the girl was trying so hard to be discrete that it was nothing more than painfully obvious for her to pick up on.

With a grin, Al snapped up his luggage and bound down the stairs once again, filtering into the crowds of people shuffling along.

"Al! Stay close by!"

He stopped as requested, unwillingly dancing around as he moved in place to get out of the way of the portions of crowd that was still moving. Frowning, Alphonse rolled his eyes, "She's being so over protective… mom wasn't so-"

"Oh, she's _not_ your mother?"

The interrupting voice caught Al's attention. His startled expression turned to the female voice standing next to him. It was the girl again, but for Alphonse it was the first time he'd noticed her. She almost looked surprised at herself that she'd actually said something aloud. The two stared in silence at each other for a moment before she bowed her head, embarrassed, and looked away. Her prominent blue eyes glanced around nervously and lost in the feet of those who passed by.

Al finally caught himself staring at her and quickly snapped to his senses, "Um, no she's not," he suddenly lit up his voice with his natural brightness, "she's… been kinda like a mother though."

It wasn't the easiest topic for him to discuss and Alphonse wondered if maybe his sudden inflection had sounded too contrived. There was still unease for him about the topic of his relationship with Izumi, and then to reference that against his mother was something he was not entirely sure how to handle. As he was now, the sensation of his lost mother, though many years past, was a memory that seemed not even a year old. For everyone around him, time had graciously healed many wounds, but Al's young memories had been ripped wide open with razors and then dusted with salt. It was an uncomfortable feeling he tried desperately to cover up.

He shook it off and looked back at her puzzled, allowing himself to wonder where the question came from. The silence between the two grew longer and larger and Alphonse began to wonder if he was even supposed to comment further. Again he was staring, watching as her hair bounced around her arms while people brushed past. He seemed caught by how the morning sunlight entered her eyes from between the cracks in the roof and he did not understand why it felt as though it wasn't he who was supposed to say something else, but she.

Desperately, curiously, wanting to say something else.

Al's gaze slowly shifted towards his feet. They'd both stopped moving and regardless if they were children or not, the crowd around them would have none of it and both suddenly found themselves shoved by those around them. Suddenly, Alphonse heard her voice again.

"I'm sorry, it's not something you want to talk about. I'm sorry I brought it up."

Al put his smile up for her, "No, it's fine, don't feel bad for tha-" he choked as he was shoved aside by a man much taller than he. He turned to reorient himself, but from the corner of his vision, Alphonse saw the girl get sucked away into the flowing crowd. Without being able to process what the heck had just happened with that strange moment in time, the young Elric found himself lurching backwards, not by his own choice. Izumi had grabbed him by the back of his shirt.

"You're having hearing problems today!" she barked, giving an open-palmed pat square in the center of Alphonse's back, "you'd think that everyone on this platform was in a fire drill. It's not like the train is too small for everyone, but they push and shove like they'll be left behind."

"Maybe you should sleep on the train," Alphonse looked up at his teacher, using his mother's concerned gaze to look back at her – it seemed to work so well on everyone.

Now part of the passenger crowd-flow, Izumi shuffled along, Al following at her side. She looked at him with a half grin before ruffling his hair, "If I'd wanted to sleep on the train, I would have gotten us tickets for the front car."

* * *

Cursing, Edward scrambled to pick up the papers he'd dropped on the floor. The bumps on this train ride were becoming more troublesome and grossly annoying.

"You'd think they could at least put a little effort into repairing the tracks _properly_. The war's been over for years," he snorted, having barely gotten a third of his papers re-organized – the rest just thrown about the private cabin. He narrowed an eye when a knock came at the door.

"Sir?"

Ed stepped thru his mess of papers to flip the lock, "Yes?"

Regardless of the rough ride, this particular train line service was one of the best. It had stopped surprising Edward that all of the concierges on this train were so proper, including this nicely painted, middle-aged, female attendant standing at his door, "You requested earlier, that since we were not stopping in Reichenhall, to know when we entered Austria."

"Ah yes, thank you," Edward was about to close the door on her, but a question caught him and he turned a confused look back to the woman, "Isn't it Czechoslovakia?"

The woman's expression was empty as she gave an answer, "The world keeps changing. I think Czechoslovakia is the division to the north, not the south. I'm Swiss, Sir, I haven't had much of a chance to keep up."

"Its fine, forget I mentioned it," He scratched his head vigorously, muttering to himself as he pushed the door shut, "doesn't matter anyways."

Edward sat down on the floor of his train cabin. Disgusted with himself, all he could really do was use his right arm as a paperweight. Muttering to himself, he brushed the shoe print marks off of his papers. Over time, he had gotten use to the paralyzed sensation of his right arm that clanked around him as he moved. It was an unsightly metal decoration he hid under his clothing.

The curtains to the room were pulled wide to allow the daytime to flow in. From the floor, he gazed up towards the window. The mid-day light should have been enough to engulf him and fill everything with noontime. But, the sunlight never seemed to illuminate anything like he remembered. It was always muted, not to the point of being grey or monotone, but just enough so that nothing was ever vibrant. He stared out the window into the smoky-blue sky that held no clouds. His expression relaxed as he sat back on his knees; his shoulders fell and mind emptied. His eyes shut and without realizing it, he'd lost track of the world around him.

The train hit another mangled section of track and he jiggled around the floor, smacking his chin against the seat.

Edward snapped his eyes back open. Brushing his bangs from his face, Ed looked at the papers tossed about carelessly on the floor, _again_, "Damn it!" He briskly swept up his papers and began stuffing them into envelopes, "Why I can't ever get anything done on these damned trains," his eyes shot across the floor, "Can't loose that," he grabbed his Vienna transfer information tucked it into his chest pocket, "Last thing I need to do is get lost in Austria."

* * *

Al twitched in his place, crossing his legs as he slouched in his seat. He reached out and put a hand on his kneecap while putting his chin in the other hand.

"What…?" Izumi spoke in a dull monotone.

"Nothing," Al replied, mimicking her disinterest.

"What…?" Izumi repeated, not changing to voice she'd used earlier.

"I need to go to the washroom," squirming a bit, Alphonse didn't need to look at her; he could feel the annoyed aura that flared up.

"I told you, you should have gone-"

"I know what you said!" he interjected, quickly wishing he hadn't.

"Don't cut me off when I am talking to you!" Izumi exploded like a bolt of lightning, standing up from her seat. Al withered into his seat, chirping out apologies as she loomed over him.

"Excuse me?"

Izumi attention lurched over her shoulder and Al peered out from the ball he'd curled up in.

Clenching her fists, the girl from the train platform straightened her knee-length, mauve dress and pulled her hair over her shoulders. Though her hands were clenched tight, her arms couldn't hold firm enough to hide her nerves, "I'm sorry, but your voice bothers me."

Amongst the three, an awkward silence hit like a heavy, old gong, with a ringing that vibrated long after the strike had fallen to create the sound. Or in this case, lack there of. It took her a moment to realize just how rude her statement had sounded right then and there, but if it wasn't taken out of context, it wasn't rude at all and entirely true.

Izumi slowly turned around, the exhausted dark circles under her eyes gave a rather demonic look to her expression, "I'm sorry young lady, but _pardon me_…?"

Taking a startled a step backwards, the girl choked, "I…"

"Where are your parents?" Izumi snarled, "Do they know you speak to your elders this way?"

The girl raised her hands in front of herself in defense, "I wasn't talking about you," her eyes shifted beyond Izumi, "I was talking about him."

"You're the girl from the platform," Al came to his feet, saddling up beside his teacher.

Izumi allowed herself to deflate but held a suspicious look over the girl as though to keep her at bay. She had been the one who'd tried so hard to eyeball them at the platform, Izumi had known that the moment she'd heard her voice, "So, beyond the apology you're going to give in thirty seconds, did you have any particular reason for watching us all morning?"

"Oh…" she looked down at her feet, her jaw remaining firm. She had really hoped they hadn't seen, "I didn't mean to stare, but something's been bothering me since I came through the turnstiles. I'm confused and I'm sure my memory isn't wrong. At least, not that wrong. Something's not adding up but I don't know what."

Izumi put her shoulder to the wall of the car, shifting her balance to the side of the train. She thought a moment, wondering if she was just too tired for that to have made any sense, or if it honestly just _didn't_ make any sense, "Come around and have a seat."

The girl slid out of her seat assignment and around to eagerly take the invite. Quickly sitting down again and brushing her dress smooth, she shifted her attention back to Alphonse, watching as he sat back down, "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so rude."

"You had something to ask me back at the station, didn't you?" Al blurted unintentionally. He hadn't realized how much the question had been festering in the back of his mind. He'd been so curious and never considered for a moment that he'd get the chance to find out what had been missed on that platform. The question had simply been filed away to be forgotten.

Izumi looked over to Al, "Alphonse, do you know her?"

Al shook his head, "No, but we talked on the platform," he looked over to her again.

"Oh…" the teenager frowned a bit as she scratched her cheek, brushing her dark hair over one shoulder, "I guess it couldn't have been you anyways, you're not right at all," she was, again, unintentionally abrupt. And she couldn't help but examine Alphonse, run his name over, his voice over, and compare it all to a memory, "but still… just… um, do you have a brother? Is his name Ed?"

Al heard the words in his head like her voice was calling to him from outside a sealed jar. The distorted sounds that could reach him echoed around his mind like they were trapped in the barrel of an oil drum.

"Edward Elric? I think he's an alchemist. Are you? Maybe you don't?"

Al stared in her direction, but could not see her anymore. His mind was elsewhere and the train car no longer vibrated beneath him. The breeze from the window that had been playing with the loosest ends of his hair ceased to exist and finally the clouds stopped their merry travel in the crystal blue sky.

_Why now?_

Izumi promptly cut the line of communication that had begun to strangle Al, "Why do you ask?" she chose to smile for the question, crossing her legs and lacing her fingers around the highest kneecap.

The girl looked away from Al, uncertain how she should react to his sudden detachment, "Something like five or six years ago, two alchemists were in our town, when I lived in the county next to the train station where we got on. It was two boys, I guess not much older than me, but I'm certain their names were Ed and Al Elric."

Izumi slowly exhaled as the girl continued.

"It was something that was kind of hard to forget. After they left, my dad heard that one the boys who'd helped me ended up becoming a State Alchemist, but…" she looked to Al again, hoping he'd pulled himself back together, "your voice… I could have sworn you were supposed to be at least six feet tall. It was so unforgettable: this big suit of armour and little boy's voice." she raised her arms above her head almost to remind herself how it felt to be in that towering presence, "and I would have thought after 5 years and being so tall that your voice would have changed like boys voices do. I never ever thought I'd hear it again," her arms fell into her lap and she neatly clasped her hands, "See, it makes no sense."

Izumi leaned back, lifting her arms to hang off the back of the seat, "Five years changes a lot. And you're right, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm pretty sure you have the wrong person," her voice had softened up to the wise voice of a teacher that had so often given a couple of boys enough information for more than one lifetime, "this boy is my son, Alphonse Curtis, he's my only child. I'm sorry dear."

The girl shifted uneasily in her place and allowed her eyes to narrow ever so slightly. She began brushing her dress smooth again, "I'm sorry to have bothered you like this. Thank you though."

"I'm curious. What's your name?" Izumi smiled her mother's smile, "and don't apologize. If you weren't observant, then I doubt your parents would let you travel alone, would they?"

"Klose," she replied, again brushing her hair behind her shoulders as though it was a nervous habit, "and my dad sent for me. He's already in Central. I don't really have anyone who can take me there, so I'm okay to go on my own. He said he trusts me. Dad would come home if he could but the terms are he can only get leave in Central. He left me with train tokens if I wanted to visit."

Not allowing her distain for the topic to enter her voice, Izumi made sure to keep their conversation going, "Ah, your father's in the military?"

Klose nodded, "He signed on about 6 months ago. He didn't want anything to do with the military recruitment before the government fell. He despised the thought of what had gone on in Ishibal and Lior, but there was really nothing he could do about any of it. He volunteered when he was given the chance to help the people rebuild, kind of like his way of showing support for the progress the country is trying to make," the more she spoke, the more she seemed to glow from ear to ear, proudly talking about her father the peacekeeper and not war monger, "A few squadrons were sent to aide Ishibal in their rebuilding process and my father was part of that team. The squads have been rotated, so he's back in Central for a while, and now I get to visit."

So much had changed in the world over the last few months.

Izumi smiled at her, "Your father is a good man."

"Thank you, but," Klose put her hands on her knees, pushing up to her feet, "I'm sorry, I should go back to my seat. I shouldn't have bothered you with any of this."

"It's fine and stop being so sorry," Izumi grinned for her, waving a hand as the girl moved swiftly back up to her ticketed seat.

Though, as Klose spun herself into her seat, out of the sight of Izumi's prying eye, her arms firmly folded across her chest and she flung her right knee over the left. She wasn't convinced, not in the slightest, that she was mistaken.

Izumi took her focus away from the child who'd retreated from their space. There was a more pressing issue that needed to be dealt with, the one that sat next to her.

"Al?" Izumi spoke quietly, "Al?" she nudged him lightly. His frozen expression trained on his faint reflection in the train window. Izumi reached an arm around him but Alphonse rolled his shoulders in refusal. More stubborn than an eleven-year-old, she reached her arm around again, this time rather than having the boy at his shoulders, she wrapped the arm around his neck. Though he tried to duck away from her, Izumi too her other hand and slid her fingers up the side of his face and into his hair. She held him there, tucked into her side. Nothing was said. Izumi shifted, pulling him tight into the curve of her side, resting his head in the space at her shoulder, along her collar bone. She put her chin down into the soft bed of hair and talked to him silently through the brush of her fingertips in a way that she knew her words couldn't reach.

It was such a festering, open wound that just did not want to shut. Izumi tried to be the strong, stern teacher that she'd established, but for Alphonse, and for this, she just preferred to be the soothing mother figure that she was scarcely allowed to be.

Al's distant voice emerged, "I remember when we sat out back with Roze and her baby; she told me the story about the Priest in Lior. She told me about Scar and Dante, she told me about a lot of things she knew. It was so unbelievably bizarre. The story had so much of me in it, but I couldn't remember any of it. It was just a story with my name in it; nothing more. I feel like I have more in common with Den."

He took a moment to breathe and suddenly felt light headed. Izumi waited silently, allowing him to speak whenever he was ready, without interruption.

"When I woke up, Roze was there and she was the first one I saw. By the time I'd heard more stories, I'd already felt like I knew Roze in some way. She'd taken me home, she could speak to me about things we'd done together and her voice meant something. There was an understanding about me when I talked with her; I didn't feel so out of place," Alphonse's hands began to fiddle with zipper on his jacket. He jerked the head sharply up and the bottom length of teeth, "But no matter how many times they told me, everything they said just wasn't real. It was real, it had happened to me, but it wasn't real."

Everyone in Alphonse's current life knew that he'd felt that way, even if he rarely voiced it.

"They would leave and it was like closing a book; you put it down and the story stops. The only thing that made it real was when I looked at Winry and could see how old she was," Al shifted in his place, relaxing in Izumi's arm, wishing for no one to see him, "I looked at her like she was just some girl on the train, nobody special to me. But, she could look at me like I was someone that meant something to her. I didn't realize I was supposed to have cared, or that I should have known," he stopped for a moment, quieted by how tight Izumi's grasp on him had gotten, "she can tell me about me and my brother; some part of that storybook life that I can't convince myself is real. I can't remember it. She's the only one here now who remembers us and how we were on those days we'd met. And the only thing I could remember about her when she sat down…" Al trailed off, his voice unsuccessful in its attempt to remain emotionless as possible.

Izumi glanced down to Al, unable to see his face, "What could you remember?" she asked quietly.

"That I liked how her eyes looked in the sunlight when she stood at the station. Nothing else."

* * *

Edward hung out the train cabin window. The vehicle had parked at a station for half an hour for passenger turnover and some track adjustment down the line. His cheek resting on the rusty metal frame, "It's so hot in here… is it supposed to be this hot in August? There has to be something wrong with this country."

He whined bitterly to himself; his jacket, vest and shoes thrown in a heap in the corner of the room. The hotter the weather got on this train ride, the hotter his arm got and that just made things worse. Edward and his father were not AutoMail engineers, but with their heads put together from what they'd observed of the Rockbells over many years, the heavy metal arm was the best either of them could come up with. Edward had given up cursing the stiff arm some time ago; it was almost a lost cause. Right now the only thing he seemed to be interested in was a passing thought on whether or not the temperature would make the paint run on the Danube station sign. Ed adjusted his ponytail having mastered the one and a half arm technique of doing so. He yanked it higher to keep his hair off the back of his neck. Relaxing on the window's edge, he wasn't given enough time to feel any peace before a little voice poked him in the face from the platform below.

"Paper, sir!"

Ed didn't even bother to open his eyes, "Shoo kid."

"I have Weiner Tagblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Angewandte Chemie, Weiner Zeitung! Come on! They're only a spot!"

Edward swung his left arm out freely and used the tips of his fingers to flick the child's oversized hat askew, "I told you to shoo, didn't I?" He cracked an eye open at the feeble skeleton of a child. A trail of sweat ran down his face. The skin stretched on the child's body seemed to be a more pale grey than any shade of pink. The child's wide eyes stared back at him desperately; the healthiest thing about it seemed to be the determination to sell a single newspaper.

Ed picked his head up slowly from the ledge, "Your papers are all German. I can't take them through all the places I'm going. Sorry."

"Zeitung isn't!" The child shoved a thin and scrunched publication into Ed's face, "It's from Vienna! I promise."

Ed put a scowl on and fell back into his cabin room. Moments later reappearing as he tossed a few coins to the feeble child, "I'll take that, go away."

The child tossed the paper up to Edward as he marched away, continuing along his daily pilgrimage of the train's platform, "Thank you for your patronage!" he called back.

Ed blinked, "Patronage?"

Shaking his head, Ed uncoiled the paper and promptly slit his eyes at the front page of the publication. An eyebrow twitched as he scowled at the newsprint, "It's old…" he scratched his head vigorously as he tossed the paper aside, "Damn, I'm tired of reading about what new province or boarder they're making up for whomever. I'll read an Austrian paper next year, maybe by then they'll decide what part of the country to leave Vienna in."

He flung himself down on the seat and sprawled out as best he could. Ed sank a bit into the light cushioning and shut his eyes. There was that overly entertaining thought again: Goddard's works. His mind could feverously run through Goddard's works and manipulate his theories to some glorious advantage – something which had become a boredom ritual for him.

Edward Elric had refused, outright refused, to accept his existence as it was. There was somewhere else he had to be. There was a place to return to. Yet, as he lay there, the harder he thought about Goddard's works, the more his concentration drifted and the more an abused, distorted and painful memory played again in his mind.

His cheek twitched at a faint sound.

"Ed…?"

Again his cheek twitched and he cracked a slit into his eyes. The tiring exercise of a miserably endless train ride had created a large cloud in his minds eye. Through it, he stared at a woman's familiar face. He accepted it as if it were not out of place and rubbed his eye lightly before continuing to float around freely.

"Are you okay?"

His eyes never opened wide enough for him to take in his surroundings, but he could have sworn the voice sounded exactly like Roze. Through his eyelids he could see the bright lights beating down on his body. He knew where he was without concern for the memory of a dance floor he lay on. He rolled his head more in the direction of the voice, feeling an unforgiving weight keeping him down, "what?"

"Al…"

He tried to open his eyes wider and clear the smog that would not disperse, "what… what about Al?" his arm shot forward, grabbing at the foggy image, his voice rising, "WHAT about Al!"

"SIR!" screamed the attendant standing over him, scrambling backwards.

Edward froze in place, staring back at the female attendant in horror. It took him a moment to dismiss the delirium of the heat and he hurriedly released her shirt collar, "I…" he staggered to his feet, "I apologize for that, I'm… not paying attention. It's hot."

The attendant stepped back from him, "I'll bring you more water," her voice tried not to quiver, "the heat isn't good for everyone."

"Thank you," he said in a distant voice, brushing the soggy hair off his sweaty face.

"Have your pass ready, Sir. We're departing right away."

"Of course," Edward reached into his pocket and fished out his ticket. His eyes returned to the window, to find something, anything, in the sky to calm his shaken thoughts.

* * *

"Wow…." Al's eyes widened, "There are so many people here, so many trains; Central is huge!" his widened, shimmering eyes could have lit up an entire room and if he wasn't careful, his gaping mouth would take in flies.

"This is only the train station in the city, everything comes through here," Izumi rolled her head around on her neck, letting it crack a few times. The back of her mind was begging for a proper bed so she could have this day to end, "pick up your bags!"

Alphonse snapped them up, "Sensei! Are we staying somewhere? Are we going to look around the city?" the young man's energy drew out a slue of questions, "Central's bookstores are full of Alchemy books, aren't they? We should see what's new, maybe they can help us! Oh, and Winry gave me a shopping list. Can I see if I can get her stuff here instead of in Rush Valley?"

Izumi's tired eyes rolled, wishing she could share his amusement but too tired to do so, "You certainly don't stay upset for long", she muttered to herself, "I called for a motel room when we missed the train at our transfer station. We have to stay overnight anyways so there's no rush. The next train to Dublith doesn't leave until the day after tomorrow."

"Yes!" Al bounced with a light fist pump.

Izumi swung a free arm forward, "Use that energy to find us a lift. If all these people take cabs, then we'll have to walk," she had barely finished her sentence before Al was off, ten strides ahead of her.

'_I wish we didn't have to stay here at all.'_

Lagging under exhausted weight, Izumi followed behind.

'_I don't like the idea of us being here. As if Drachma causing headaches along the route won't be problem enough for us, I don't need to be recognized here. We don't need _that_ problem.' _

She began her slow accent up the station stairs, trying not to drag her feet as she moved. Izumi looked up as she reached the top of the stairs. Al had stopped no more than thirty meters ahead, his bags on the ground at his feet. She narrowed her eyes at the scene in front of her, "Isn't that interesting."

"It's good that you have time off to spend with your daughter!" Al beamed as he brushed a wave of hair out of his face.

"Where did you say you were going again? Dublith?" Klose's father tapped his chin, his military jacket unbuttoned to accommodate the heat, "I think I had a cousin once who lived there…"

Al nodded affirmatively, "We are. But, we have to wait a few days until the next train heads down that way. We've found a motel for now."

Klose ran her fingers thru the ends of her hair, "Papa, I don't think they'll have much luck getting a decent ride this time of day. Couldn't we drop them off?" she offered.

Al protested with an emphatic wave of his hands, "No, don't do that. We'll be fine!"

"We'll be fine with what?" Izumi stepped up behind Al, putting a hand on his shoulder, eyeballing the pair in front of them, "Good afternoon."

"Papa, this is Al's mother, Ms. Curtis," Klose gave a skewed smile as she motioned to Izumi.

Al blinked at that and Izumi gave a slight bow of her head, "I hope my boy isn't holding you up Ms. Klose… and… Sergeant Klose…"

Her father snorted before giving a laugh at the address, "I'm property of my own daughter now? How disgraceful," the sergeant clapped his hands together twice to clear the air, "it isn't an intrusion Alphonse, I'd be delighted to take you and your mother to your lodge. Besides, if it's your first time in Central, you should be shown the some of the highlights of the city, if you have the time to look around? People's first impressions of this massive city are usually quite overwhelming. You shouldn't put an opportunity like this to waste. We should stop for something to eat along the way."

Izumi frowned slightly, rather uneasy with the situation setting in, "I really don't think we should impose on you like this…"

Klose was again analyzing Izumi's movements; her gut feeling telling her to be suspicious, yet entirely unsure as to why, "No really, we insist." Curiosity was getting the better of her and she allowed Izumi to pick up on the lack of honest concern in her voice. Izumi was not given a chance to eye the girl in return before her father again insisted upon being their escort.

Izumi looked downwards to Al before taking her attention to the Sergeant, "I suppose it would be an honour to have one of the military's finest show us around."

* * *

Edward repeatedly flipped his pocket watch open and closed - an action he'd had as boredom ritual since he was twelve-years-old. He repeated the action countless times, his mind unable to focus on any one particular thought, again losing track of his surroundings. What had feeling like a full day's worth of boredom in Vienna had actually been merely an hour under their sun. Ed shook his head to wake himself up, paying little attention to the crowds of people passing him by – that was until someone stepped into his sunlight.

"That's a very lovely watch? Who's your craftsman?"

Edward looked up into the face of a bright young woman, probably not more than a few years older than himself, he figured. She tilted her head waiting for a response. Ed snapped the watch shut and responded blankly, "I made the design, but one of my Father's associates had it crafted for me."

The presumptuous woman sat down next to him on the rickety station bench, her short brown curls bouncing around her face, "I've never seen that sort of insignia before, but if I were to guess, I'd say it looks like its military of some sorts. Is it a war token? Are you a soldier?"

Edward stared on at her confused to why she'd suddenly engaged him. The woman had a fragrant mystique to her and by how she'd carried herself, even in the short moments Ed had seen her, he could tell she was some sort of curious busybody.

She was dressed quite fine. Her knee length tan jacket was tied perfectly at the middle and her hat sitting slightly askew to allow her spiral-curls to bounce enthusiastically on just the one side. The tops of her high-heeled boots hid beneath the lengthy deep brown dress that peeked out from beneath her jacket as she crossed one leg over the other. In a mockingly dainty manner, she clasped her hands carefully over her knee and peered into Edwards business with her eyes a little more.

"Well," Ed paused. There was a contrived response he'd created to explain the watch, why he'd had a replica of his State Alchemist watch forged for himself here, but it seemed lost on him today, "kind of but not really, it's more of a personal keepsake for an old friend."

The woman's eyes widened, "Oh that's sweet, what a nice thing to do for a friend. Did they die in the war?"

"Huh?" Ed's mouth hung open while he unwound his confused look, unsure about how she mangled his statement into that conclusion.

"I understand how that is," she continued on, "its fine craftsmanship, the edging, the lines. I could tell from a distance it was something exquisitely made. You must have used the finest silver for it. How does it work? Do you wind it? Is it automatic?"

Edward suddenly chilled over at the woman's line of questioning. He clenched his hand tightly over the watch and stuffed it back into his pocket, wiping away a trickle of sweat running along his hairline, "What's your name?"

"Me?" The woman seemed unfazed by Edward's sudden change in behaviour, continuing to smile as if she'd been hoping all along for the topic to come up, "Mathilde. And what might yours be?"

"Edward," He examined the woman over carefully, looking for some clue that would reveal what business she had with him, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Mathilde re-crossed her legs and leaned back upon the bench they shared, "I'm not certain. Are you from Schässburg? Have you ever been there?"

Ed frowned, not liking the counter-questioning and disliking even more her _one _choice of cities to ask him about, "I haven't, but I'm heading there," his hand still gripped the watch stuffed in his pocket.

"Are you?"

Her tone was so ridiculous in Edward's ears. She'd sounded like this flamboyant cabaret dancer he'd been forced to converse with while out with acquaintances one night. Her words were forced, she sounded contrived and he could have sworn she was just there to be obnoxious.

"Well then, if you were traveling 'from', instead of traveling 'to', my question would have been more helpful to us," the woman tapped her chin lightly as if she were playing a game, "how about Munich? Have you ever been there?"

"I live in Munich," he replied flatly.

Unfazed by Edward's lack of enthusiastic participation in her conversation, she continued on, "Oh! Have you ever been to the University there? I've had a number of friends attend there. Best education the country has to offer!"

Edward narrowed his eyes at suspicious nature of her questions, "My Father teaches there."

"Does he really?" by mistake, Mathilde allowed her honestly surprised response to come through in her voice, throwing a curve ball into Edwards court – he'd been thinking she'd been playing him from the start, "he must be a great man to be a professor at Munich's University. Goodness, what's his name?"

"Why…?" Ed responded, unable to release his eye of suspicion cast over the woman. His hand released the pocket watch and emerged from him his pocket to brush the beads of sweat from his forehead.

"You're quite rude to girls, has anyone ever told you that?" Mathilde falsified anger as she chirped back at him, "it's no wonder you have no traveling companion." She stood up sharply and straightened her jacket, "why on earth would someone like you head to my home town? I can guarantee the bordello owners will kick you out if you disrespect the service. You aren't _big_ enough to stand up against thos-."

A vein snapped upon Edward's forehead and he shot up like a fire cracker, "Who-are-you-calling-so-short-that-no-one-can-see-ME?"

Mathilde paled. Her eye twitched slightly as she took a step backward, "Um..."

Edward thrust a finger into her face, his deep, demonic voice booming out, "I've _grown_."

"Tily!" a man's voice called from the distance. It cut Ed off before he could continue, "We're boarding!"

"I'll be right there!" the woman called, stepping back from a fuming Edward. Her playful expression fell away and she looked upon him with the eyes of a woman mature beyond her age, "I hope you find what you're looking for in Schässburg. There have been some problems with rebel groups since we became Rumanians. Keep alert, won't you?" She spun upon her toes, tossing her hair from her face and pranced away.

Edward watched, mouth half open as she ran off into the crowds of people, "What on earth…" he slowly rose his hand to his forehead with a sigh. The chain from his watch hung from his jacket pocket and clattered on the bench as he sat down again.

* * *

"Wow…" Al exhaled as he gazed down the street.

Kloze folded her arms with delight, "The Open Market Fair began a few days ago. All sorts of little shops, more than usual, selling everyone's best products are out! Food, clothes, sweets and candy, toys and games and gadgets for that girlfriend you were talking about; you can find them all here! "

Al's eyes widened in a childish horror, "Winry is _not_ my girlfriend."

"Awww," Klose teased as she walked along with Al into the market, "she sounds so sweet though."

"Winry is six mo-years older than me!" he caught himself in his sentence, "it doesn't work!"

"Well fine, she can be a big sister then," Klose's attention suddenly drew away, and her eyes darted out to the side, "that is so pretty!" she turned on a dime and slid herself thru the pedestrian traffic towards a both.

The two of them had been set loose in the market place after they'd entertained lunch at one of the many sprawling outdoor cafés. A few blocks away from the shopping chaos, Klose's father had introduced the group to a patio diner. The children had spent the dinner hour chattering about the amount of traffic they could see entering and exiting the market lined with streamers and decorative knickknacks. The children had finally persuaded both guardians to relent and allow their children loose upon the facility for fifteen minutes before they were to return and go in as a group.

"H-hey!" Al pushed past people bumping his small stature aside, trying to reach Klose. The dirt path was soft and muddy beneath his feet – an unfortunate reminder of the rain the night before. Al slid awkwardly, his feet wanting to proceed in alternate directions. A man's firm hand came upon his shoulder and pushed him aside and Al landed hard, with his hands and knees embedding into the mud. Regaining his composure as quickly as he could, Al shot a glare up to a six-foot tall man who simply gave an empty, uncaring stare down at him. His square jaw and chin were held high and tight while the momentary exchange of looks came over the man's raised cheekbone. The sun-tanned face turned away from Al, his two right earrings refracting the filtered sunlight as he left.

Al muttered to himself as he stumbled out of the way of the traffic, which never ceased to be continually in motion. Wiping the mud from his hands onto his jeans, he staggered to Klose who promptly held up her new possession wrapped in a plain paper bag, "the feathers won me over!"

"…Feathers?" Al's face fell slightly and he tipped his head.

"It's a pen! It looks like a dip pen, but it can store the ink in its body too. Here watch," grabbing Al by the wrist, Klose pulled him to the side of the booth to escape the traffic and put on a demonstration. Brushing the booth's cloth-overhang aside, she placed the paper bag down and quickly pulled out a polished, black, fat pen stem with a shining new nib that she slipped into the tip. A pair of purple feathers, one darker than the other, decorated the end of the pen.

She produced an ink jar put the black ink on the edge of the table, "See you dip it in the ink jar like so and just wait a few seconds. It'll suck it right up."

When Alphonse didn't respond in any way, Klose looked up confused. Alphonse had been bubbling with words since they'd entered. But something had his attention, and Al stared right past her, deep behind the stone-building backdrop of the sales booths, no longer listening to what she had to say.

"Al?"

"Huh?" he blinked back into reality, "sorry."

"Okay," she grabbed Al's right hand and held his palm open between them, "then you simply take the pen and you can draw fluid circles over and over. Not as scratchy as a regular dip pen."

In the palm of his hand she began to run the pen. Al watched for a moment, thought he wasn't paying attention; his mind was distracted. He looked away from his and her art, again his attention carried behind the booths and vanished into the alleyway between two buildings. Something was moving around down there, he was certain. He thought, perhaps it was a cat, but it seemed a little too big.

"Al?"

"Huh?" he again shot his attention back to Klose.

Klose frowned at him as Al, "What are you looking at?" she gave him his hand back and turned over her shoulder to look down the alley as well. She narrowed her eyes in an attempt to define the dark, grey objects that lay in the shadows, "what? I see garbage cans."

Al stepped further away from the crowds and deeper into the backdrop, picking up Klose's bottle of ink from the table as he moved, "I thought I could see something moving."

Klose placed her hands upon her hips, "Cats and dogs like old garbage cans. They're too scared to come out with all these people. I don't see anything moving though, maybe you're just tired?"

"No really…" Al moved forward towards the alley, "I saw something odd, I'm sure." He stopped at the alley's entrance, placing his right hand upon the aging wall.

"Cats and dogs, Al," Klose offered again.

Al shook his head, "This was too big."

"Coyotes don't come this far into the city," Klose stopped in mid-motion, the shadows finally moving for her. Whatever it had been, it had darted down deeper, towards the end of the alley and around the corner of the building lost in darkness. Klose froze in step as a chill ran down her back. Al stepped back, bumping into her. The two exchanged nervous glances before Klose's resolve set back in.

"I've never been afraid of ghosts," she placed a hand on Al's shoulder. The two took a deep breath and stepped into the alley.

Al stayed half a stride ahead of her, clenching his left hand around the bottle of ink as they walked quietly into the darkness, his right hand trailing along the wall as if to make sure he could keep his sense of direction. He could hear the faint echo of their soggy footsteps as they stepped into the thin, low layer of mist that lived above the ground; another remnant from the rain in the evening prior. Al gingerly stepped around a line of trashcans and garbage bags at the wall and looked back to see how Klose was dealing.

Klose's attention was focused dead ahead, though a hint of worry was smeared across her face as she chewed on her lower lip, "Well, come on," she urged hesitantly, "or do we turn back?"

Al looked past her to the bustling of people beyond the dealer's stand they'd tucked in behind. Through the crowds, he caught the eye of an elder female peddler who operated the stand across the pathway. Alphonse suddenly realized they were somewhere they should not be - the woman firmly adjusted her grey bun upon her head, snatched up the whiskbroom that lay upon the tabletop and slapped it into her hand. Al's eyes widened with concern because the woman was approaching. He quickly wondered just how much trouble he'd get into with Izumi if this elder lady deemed them as troublemakers. When they'd been told to make the most of their 15 minutes, he very much doubted the pair of adults had meant anything like this.

"Um, Klose…"

She turned her gaze to follow Al's. Klose had barely been given enough time to recognize the woman as a peddler before the elder lady suddenly jerked violently to the side without a hand touching her. Without getting close enough for the pair to have ever heard her voice, the elder woman toppled to the ground.

Both children's eyes shot wide, neither given enough time to comprehend what had just happened to this woman. With that as the only warning, the children found themselves with their hands flying over their heads as they ducked away from the rapid succession of gunfire echoing off the walls. Without a word to each other, or a scream, they turned and ran down into the darkness of the alleyway.

The children's feet pounding thru the murky layers on the alley floor was heard by no one. Frightened tears clouded their vision as they both slipped to their knees, barely able to keep standing and having tried to take the sharp turn too quickly at the end of the alleyway. Gripping the mud between their fingers, they scrambled on hands and knees through the sludge until they were able to return to a balance upon their feet. Klose slapped her soiled hands over her ears, trying to drown out the sound of the gunfire – the tightly enclosed stone walls amplified the distant sound. Although the sounds of people's screams echoed above all else, the pair only heard the encroaching gunfire. Al remained a stride ahead of Klose and he looked up to another alleyway intersection. Suddenly even more frightened than before, Al skid to a stop, his feet sliding out from underneath him as if he'd just stopped upon a sheet of ice. Klose's right leg caught on his shoulder and she tumbled down to the ground next to him. They felt no pain from their fall and they shot a wide-eyed gaze at each other before staring ahead at the intersection. Klose's hands trembled as she reached back for her ears again, the maddening gunfire and screams never ceasing to exist. Whatever courage they'd entered with lay shattered and soiled in the mud around them.

Shakily, Al began to rise to his feet again, but could not get up off his knees. Klose had begun to curl up – her forehead pressed against the soggy ground. Al reached out and grabbed her upper arm, trying to pull her upright. Her trembling began to transfer to his body and again he looked down the alley.

The world around them changed suddenly and without warning. The next thing either of them realized was the stench they'd suddenly found their bodies lying in. Blown from their position, skimming at great speeds along the ground – they had become projectiles thrown into the garbage bags lining one of the walls, forcefully removed from their positions by an explosion within the building at their right. The trash and waste had cushioned them from a direct impact with the cement wall.

Al shifted within the debris, finding he could move in the mess well enough. Threads of sunlight filtered in around them. He felt Klose move beneath him and whispered to her, asking how she was only to receive a faint acknowledgement. Trying unsuccessfully to move again, Al sank deeper into the waste and mix of unknown debris. He could feel his right side burning in pain from the explosion. Putting his right hand to the side of his head in search of blood, Al examined the findings in his palm through the filtered sunlight and promptly froze. His line of concentration came into unexpected focus. The jar of ink was no longer in his left hand. As carefully as he could, he cleared his palms of the spatters of blood, sludge and mess and turned to face the wall they'd been thrown up against.

"Klose," he said with an affirmative tone.

She tried her best to look up at him, catching only half of the stern expression on his face, "Al?"

He slammed his right palm against the cement wall. Klose shrieked from the light that blinded her and became lost within the noise that engulfed the pair. She tried to curl away. Moments later, Klose felt Al's hand grab her under her arms and pull her forwards, through a hole in the wall. Once clear of the mess, both collapsed upon the cleaner ground; Klose lay upon her back for a moment, gasping for air, looking up at the arched hole in the wall. Parts of concrete and stone wall fell down into the gap where the two once lay. The pair crawled further into the black room of the building, darkened from lack of power.

"I'm okay," Klose spoke to herself as she pulled up to her knees. Both sat in silence of each other's company. Although the noise raged on outside, they could only hear each other's staggered breathing that they attempted to bring under control.

"Klose?" Alphonse finally aired out.

She looked over at him as Al held up his right palm, "Why did you draw this?" his question had a hint of all his circulating emotions, the most prominent being absolute confusion.

Getting to her feet slowly Klose looked down at Al, "I saw your brother draw that once, didn't I?"

Al's expression fell; he looked up at her in the darkness, unsure about the answer he should give. The fear of all that was going on around him seemed to make the topic somewhat easier to want to explain, given the circumstance.

"I only saw it briefly but I never forgot what it looked like. I saw it again in some books I browsed through the first time I came to Central."

Al took his hand back and examined the transmutation circle drawn in his palm, "It's one of the most basic of all circles," looking back up at her, Klose grabbed Al by his wrist and helped him back to his feet.

"Well, then I'm glad you haven't forgotten how to use it," her grin was the brightest thing in the room, though it only shone for a moment.

Al stared at her with an expression hinting of nervousness, unsure if he should explain further. But, there was the more pressing issue of what was going on, where they were and how they would get out.

Klose shook her head, dismissing the lines of thought over her doodle. The personal questions could wait. She turned around in the room, trying not to bump into anything as she looked around for a door, "We need to get out of here."

* * *

**To Be Continued…  
**

* * *

Author's Note

This chapter is "52" because the final episode of the series was 51.

There're too many ways to spell "Rizembool". Even Bones and Arikawa have spelt it differently more than once. This is the spelling I will use.

The official spelling of Klose is "Close" but I'll use the miss-spelt "Klose" version from the fansubs. It's easier to recognize as a name – it just didn't read very well with the proper spelling.

**2006-02-04** – I went through and touched up some spelling, punctuation, clarity and sentence structure. I probably didn't catch everything, but I hope it flows a bit better. Maybe someday I'll give these early chapter a full makeover ;) but probably not until I'm finished.

**2010-05-30** – I fleshed out the chapter more to my liking and I hope it's well received! I tried to keep its core in tact as much as possible :) it may still be awkward at times or suffer from typos. I don't want to change it up too much or it'll lose my flow on how I've progressed as a writer. Chalk it up to the learning curve for being the first chapter of the very first fanfic I ever wrote! The original version remains in my LiveJournal account and the link for that is in my profile :). Pre-edit word count was 7970, post-edit count is 9,707. Number scrabble, apparently.


	2. A Stranger's Face

_There was some point in time in my life when I had the distinction of being the "Dog of the Military" who sided with the people. I visited cities like this when I was younger. It's almost as if this world refuses to let those memories fade away from me; to remind me..._

**Chapter 53 – A Stranger's Face**

Ed sat on his suitcase, simply staring out into the morning sun. His train had been delayed in the evening due more unexplained 'track problems'; which his train very nearly blew right through. The roadside he waited upon now veered down into the Tarnava valley of lush forests. It reminded him of the valley he played in as a child. While he sat there, day-dreaming about doing _anything_ else other than waiting, he would find his 7-year-old self back in that valley. Edward watched silently as the sun crept up from beyond the forested hills that surrounded the city. Slowly, the weak sunlight breathed the resemblance of colour into the tops of the old buildings lining the roadways. The town had to wake up at some point in time, he figured, but it seemed 5am hour was still a proper time for the general inhabitants to remain out of sight and lost in bed.

Which helped Edward very little – _he_ was lost.

Having been told the location of an Inn as his train rolled in at half past one in the morning, Ed had followed the provided directions. Wandering in the streets during the dead of night, he passed ancient house after ancient house, and they all seemed to look the same. He walked on, his pocket watch egging on time's progression. At some point he realized that this residential neighbourhood did not have any place for him to stay, and at this time of night, there was no one for him to intrude upon. Who knocks on someone's door in the middle of the night?

So, he had propped himself up against the suitcase at the corner of a house. Drifting in and out of a light sleep for the nighttime hours that remained – an experience which felt more like hallucinations than rest. His left hip was sore and his right shoulder ached as he slouched over for as long as he could. The sun's rise interfered with his impaired visions. Finally, when it was light enough, he picked himself up and staggered down the street in the washed out orange hue of the early morning. Occasionally, he'd wondered when it was he'd last had a decent night's sleep last. He came to a stop atop an embankment within the hilltop town and it showed him a scope of the town he was going to have to make progress through. At that point, Ed concluded more progress could be made by sitting tight and waiting for the city to wake. As he waited, hoping to hear the soothing sound of morning birds or country breeze, all Edward heard was nothing more than the pounding of the headache between his ears and the churning of his empty stomach.

"Young man, are you alright?" was something he did not hear at first, it wasn't loud enough.

"Boy?" A hand landed upon his shoulder cautiously. Edward startled violently; he jerked his head in the direction of his questioner, trying to stand up. His vision was slow to catch up with his movements and his balance easily gave out on him. Landing in a heap upon the ground, Ed groaned in displeasure.

"My lord," along with the sound of an elder voice, a hand reached out and grabbed him under his right arm. The figure paused a moment but finally took a firm hold of Edward's arm, straining to help him back to his feet, "I'd have sworn you were drunk, yet you smell like a musty old closet."

"I wasn't drinking," Edward pulled himself away from the gentleman, taking control of his own balance, figuring the old man's voice actually meant 'sweaty old train car'. His attention came into focus on the man before him; an elder gentleman, his aging hair a prominent silver colour, as opposed to dull grey. He stood strong and steadfast before Ed, his black overcoat hanging loosely around his rounded figure. The elder man adjusted his glasses as he leaned down to pick up his black leather bag resting next to Ed, "you're an unhealthy shade of white, child. You should come with me."

Ed's tired mind tried to understand how this man had appeared out of thin air. Yet, as he looked around he suddenly began to realize that at some point in time, as his eyes squinted in the low sunlight, life had begun to emerge from the sleeping village. The next thing he seemed to know was that he was toddling down the cobblestone roadway through the town; as if minutes had vanished from his life. The elder man, with no fear of giving orders, led the way for him.

Though he should have been grateful, Ed's cranky voice showed up, "So, who the hell are you and where are we going?"

"I'm the chief director of the medical centre you're accompanying me to," the man replied matter-of-factly.

Edward stopped in his tracks, "No thanks, I don't need to go to a hospital," and for that moment of realization, he felt quite awake.

The elder man looked back at him with the stern eyes of a father, "I know you don't live in this town because I know everyone from the eastern hills to western rise. You muttered something while you were daydreaming about traveling. When was the last time you ate a full meal? You can't remember can you?"

Edward searched his mind, trying to remember if he could recall what he'd muttered about traveling.

The elder man dropped his shoulder bag to the ground, creating a faint cloud of dust. He stepped up to the confused Elric and slapped his cheek with the back of his hand, "Your lips are dried out, your eyes have sunken in; you're dehydrated! You can't keep your balance; your eyes are unable to keep focus. You haven't had any decent sleep in far too long. I could grab you by the chin, give your head a shake and you'd drop like a fly. You haven't taken care of yourself properly on your journey, young man," turning away from Ed's dumbfounded expression, the medical director picked up his bag and glanced over his shoulder, "Of all of the injuries, diseases, and problems that have wandered through this town in recent years, yours will be something I can enjoy remedying for the sheer simplicity of it. Come along."

* * *

Alphonse cautiously pushed open the door from the room he and Klose found themselves in. Peering slowly out into the hallway he found it was shrouded in a dirty fog.

"Al," Klose's whisper entered the silence, "… I think its smoke."

Both of them looked back into the room as smoke begin to leak in from the crevice they had crawled in from. Klose put her hand to the open wounds on her right cheek, but quickly pulled her own touch away. Her fingertips stung the sore and scraped up flesh that had taken the impact of the earlier explosion. she wiped the faint blood residue in her hand off on her hip.

Al reached back and grabbed her by the wrist, giving Klose a tug as they both entered the hallway. Ceiling beams had snapped out of their fixtures as the pair stepped thru the broken glass and heavy debris. The pair made their way blindly through the darkened building, unsure which door would lead to the door that could free them from the dark. No matter how hard Klose kicked, nor how hard Al could throw his body, there were simply too many doors that refused to be opened; only two of them would budge. Those doors that did open were simply empty offices or supply rooms within the inner portion of the building; they did not lead to an exit for the complex. None of the doors on the one side of the hallway would open at all. The two continued to walk, growing more concerned as they felt the choking heat from the smoke as it slowly thickened. They had no idea where it was coming in from, though they figured it was probably from all around.

Al finally stopped behind Klose. He knelt down and placed his hands on the cool cement floor – wishing it were something he could scoop up and splash over his body. His right cheek had begun to sting from the earlier explosion, he knew his shoulder was bleeding from a gash, but he did not want to look at it. He could feel the stinging sensation of his right leg match his cheek. He was exhausted in a way he'd never felt before, but his adrenaline kept him running at an accelerated pace. To further the condition, no matter how deep a breath he would take, it did not relieve the burning he felt in his chest nor the faint stars that would come and go in his eyes.

"I don't feel good…" he finally murmured, putting his forehead down on the cool floor, causing Klose to stop several feet ahead of him.

"AL! Get up," she demanded, going back for him, "Al you can't stop." Grabbing him under his arms, Klose helped pull him to his feet. They took a moment together, slowly trying to take away the feelings of shortness of breath subside. Klose glanced over to Al, watching him as he examined the palm of his hand. The heat and moist alley had caused his hand to remain constantly damp as they'd walked and pulled on doors; the circle that was once in his hands was smudged up so badly he could not use it again. He concluded that Klose's bottle of ink had been ejected from his hand earlier when the explosion occurred or when he'd hit the wall.

"Let's go."

The two moved again, they realized they had to keep moving and get out. Again they managed their way around debris in the hallway. They did not realize until it began to sting that the smoke was irritating their eyes and impeding their vision. Klose felt the sweat run down her neck as Al tried to brush the heat in his hair away.

The obstacle course of broken material made the hallway longer than it actually was and they had finally reached its end. Whatever door they needed to escape from did not exist in the lingering darkness that suffocated them. The pair stood side by side, bodies melting away as they felt their own weights bear down upon their shoulders. Looking up through heavy eyes at the unbroken, quarter window near the ceiling, nothing needed to be said – Al kicked off his shoes and he stepped up under the window. Klose picked up one of his runners and turned back to him. Al squatted slightly and cupped his hands together to help lift her up towards the window. Stepping into his handhold and with her chest and hands pressed against the wall to keep steady, she soon found herself awkwardly standing upon his shoulders. Klose gripped the left side of the window frame with one hand as Al struggled to remain balanced below her – his hands wrapped around her ankles while they crushed down on his exhausted shoulders. With all the might she had remaining, Klose slammed the heel of the shoe into the window again, and again, repeatedly… hearing nothing more than a rubber thud. Her hand gripped the frame so hard it sliced into her fingers – she did not let go or relent, continuing to slam the heel of the shoe into the window.

"OPEN!"

Al shook beneath her, struggling to maintain the dual body weight. He knew his trembling was not helping her stay steady in front of the window, but it had become something he could not control. The oxygen deprived muscles trembled violently in the smoke. He tried to remain focused on staying balanced. When he gave a moment's thought about breathing, he was reminded of the pain burning in his chest; so strained he could not breathe.

"Klose!" Al screamed out in frustration.

She hurled the shoe at the window with such force flew from her hand. Its rubber sole bouncing off the pane into the dark cloak of the hallway smoke. Momentarily staring off into the darkness, Klose clenched her teeth on her lip trying not to cry – her hands griping either end of the window frame. She turned her attention back to the window and suddenly could no longer see out. Al called to her again, his voice choking out half way through. Holding onto the window frame as if she thought she could tear it out of the wall, Klose screamed back at him in tears; slamming her forehead into the glass.

Al felt her weight collapse down upon him and his body gave out under the pressure. The two mangled bodies crashed into a heap as glass shards sprinkled down around them. Klose withered up next to Al, pawing at her forehead as she stumbled upon her knees and elbows trying to make the pain stop, unable to properly acknowledge how much it hurt to move her right arm. Upon his back, Al stared up at the oxygen hole that sucked out the endless smoke. He grit his teeth and reached out to his side, his hand firmly grasping a large shard of broken glass. Slowly getting to his hands and knees, Al slammed the shard into the wall. Holding the jagged piece of glass with both hands, he carved the basic circle he knew so well. His body so wrapped up in problems of a larger scale, he did not feel the glass cut into his hands each time he began a new line. Finally shutting his eyes to stop the burning smoke, Al placed his hands firmly upon the circle and forged another hole into the wall of the building.

He did not step out of the inviting escape route immediately. Al turned back into the room, reaching out for. Having no energy to form words and barely able to maintain balance upon his hands and knees, Al grabbed the back of Klose's dress collar and tried to pull her to their exit. Klose found something left of her own strength and, by Al's direction, the two found their way into the opening. Their strengths barely gave enough to crawl out of the building and their bodies fell upon the welcoming ground.

Unaware of much else, Klose came to learn that the roof of the several-storied building towering over them was burning. Lying on her back, she could see the distinctly angry orange colours through her clouded vision. Yet the fresh air that entered her body seemed like this moment was victory. She couldn't will herself to move any farther, neither of them could. The exhausted girl couldn't convince herself that she would die when the flames finally came crash down around her. Her head pounded while they lay in the street at the foot of the burning building. She thought of calling out for Al, but her voice had abandoned her. Slowly, Klose discovered that her eyelids had become too heavy to keep open.

As she drifted out, a cold pair of fingers pressured a tender part of her neck for a moment before her entire body slowly lifted off the ground.

* * *

"You are going to make yourself sick."

"I have an iron stomach!"

The doctor shook his head, "That's your fifth bowl of stew tonight. I hope it functions as well as your arm and leg do."

Ed paused in the middle of his food-shoveling to think about the comment, "No, I'm good."

"If you insist," bemused, the doctor shook his head and sat back down at his desk, desperately wishing he could find the interest to get through his paperwork. Though he leafed through the documents, his distracted mind only caught a few words per written sentence. The old man sighed and leaned back in his chair, "Your name is bothering me."

Edward put down his empty bowl and looked at back at the man, "A danno wae eh shood," forgetting any manners, Ed spoke as he chewed down on the last heaping mouthful.

The elder man shook his head and turned in his chair to face Edward, "I'm not sure what it is." He tapped the end of his pen on his desk with a frown, "You're keeping me from concentrating on my work young man!"

Edward adjusted himself in his seat at the adjacent table in the clean white office, "Sorry," he grinned sheepishly as he swallowed his final bites, "you did invite me here, though."

His memory was fuzzy, so the doctor had filled Ed in earlier about how he'd passed out on the nursing staff. The old man had been right; Ed hadn't eaten proper meals beyond whatever bits were sold at the stations and provided on the trains. Nor had he had a decent nights sleep for several days thanks in part to the uncomfortable station benches, rough train tracks and the sweltering heat; which was also a factor in his night-long delirium and dehydration. The Professor had awakened him before the sun fell again, figuring correctly that Edward didn't want, nor need, his internal clock to be messed up like that.

"Thanks for your hospitality though, but I should think about getting going," he scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "If I'm out of your way, you might get some work done."

The doctor laughed at that, "I highly doubt I could do such a thing right now. I mean my God, look at you. That arm and your leg! Who on earth thought up a technology like that? The principal behind it all is astonishing – to combine mechanical technology with limb replacement and then integrate that with the nervous system so it can function? I've never even heard of such a thing being attempted," the doctor's words flew about, "who out there knows enough about man's nervous system to dream this up? I can't believe you can even lift that arm to shoulder's height."

Ed laughed at that comment lightly, "Yeah, well, it's got a long way to go before its any good. I can't really move my fingers."

The old man shook his head at the comment, rolling his eyes in a bewildered state, "I simply cannot believe you view this as substandard."

"Well, I've had…" Ed stopped himself, "I guess, my Father and I have a vision that's greater than this burden I take around with me."

The doctor rested his elbow upon the desk, a sudden thought striking him, "And your Father is?"

"Hohenheim."

Snapping his fingers the doctor tossed his pen to his desk in amusement, "Ah-hah. That's why your name is familiar. Professor Hohenheim-Elric. I should have remembered that. Such a prominent name from the Health and Sciences Division out of the University of Munich I'm ashamed to admit I'd forgotten it."

Suddenly puzzled, Edward's eyes examined the man. His father had never mentioned having any connections in Rumania or Transylvania, "Why would you know my father's name all the way out here?"

"Oh my daughter-in-law thought very highly of him when she visited the University of Munich with my son last year. She heard one of his lectures and has been somewhat intrigued by his philosophies ever since; in a casual sense anyways." The doctor laughed at the thought, "She thought about writing him once, but my son said that when they return to Munich he'll see who he could talk to so she could attend another lecture."

Ed laughed a bit, "I'm sure I can arrange for her to sit in on one of his lectures without a hassle," his characteristic grin plastered across his face, "In return for the hospitality, I don't see it as a problem."

The doctor grinned back to Ed, nodding his head, "Sounds like a fair trade. Thank you so much, I hope it's not an imposition."

"It's not…" Edward's voice responded slowly before shaking off the words, "what's her name?"

"Tilly Hummel."

Ed felt slightly relieved, finally finding out the man's surname. He'd spent a while chatting with the elder doctor and while mention of Edward's own name came up, he had never been given an opportunity to ask the doctor for his name in return. Every staff member they met addressed the doctor with 'Professor' as if it were some title like 'King', where no surname was required.

"Well, thank you Professor Hummel, you've saved me from getting trampled on in the streets. But I have to see if I can find the people I came here for before the sun sets again," Edward rose from his seat.

"Make sure you don't let the heat get to you again," the doctor handed Edward his coat that hung on the rack, "and you're mistaken."

"About?" Ed blinked.

The Professor laughed at the thought, realizing he'd caught Edward in an innocently ignorant moment, "Tilly still uses her madden name. My name isn't Hummel."

"… Oh," Ed suddenly grinned like a sheepish fool, clenching his teeth in embarrassment, "I misunderstood. I should have asked."

"That's fine," the man passed Edward his briefcase, "I didn't introduce myself properly. The name is Oberth."

Edward's face fell sharply, "… Yeah, _pardon_?"

* * *

"Oh, careful," a pair of hands came over Al's cheeks as a violent cough woke him. Through a sensational fog he could feel a moist hand cloth touch his face. It was a faint comfort in the horrible feeling of overwhelming exhaustion he'd been fading in and out of.

"You should have something more to drink," the voice filtered into Al's slowly waking mind, "your fever went down, but your cough is persistent," from the corner of his mind's eye he heard water pouring into a glass, "come on, sit up a bit more."

It was a mothering tone of voice that any child would instinctively respond to – unabrasive, inviting and warm. Shifting awkwardly in his bed, Al did as he was told.

"There we go," his caretaker said, sitting down on the bed next to him. She rested the cold tip of the glass against his dried out lips. Trembling, Al's bandaged hands reached up and gripped the glass, the woman's hand continued to steady the glass at its base while he drank it down to the last drop. He could hear her laugh lightly to herself.

"You're a bit more awake this time," her light, whimsical laugh felt as warm as the sunlight that filtered in from around the curtains, "much better than before. You started to cough it up last time," she stood up, taking the glass from Al and setting it back down on the table. Glancing back towards his bed, she addressed him quietly again, "Your name is Alphonse Elric, correct?"

He nodded slowly in response to her, still trying to gain his bearings. As the words of the moment began to untangle in his mind Al suddenly became confused. His confused and disoriented gaze scanned the lady who stood before him. The woman looked back at him with hints of hesitation in her eyes; yet she stood prim and proper in a light peach dress shirt and faded jeans. Her smile for him soothed away the moment of concern.

"Your friend told one of the doctors what your name was," she brushed a short strand of brown hair from her face.

Slowly responding to valuable information, Al placed pieces of their short conversation together. Finally pushing his white sheets aside, Al tried to get out of the bed, "Is Klose all right? She got out all right, didn't she? I don't remember when we got away… it just…"

Al's voice trailed off into the troubled expression of the woman who'd come over to stop him from getting up. His body quickly reminding him he was still exhausted and tired. The sudden urge to crawl back under the covers hit Al, but the mystifying urge to see through the woman's gaze kept him frozen in place at the edge of the bed. Kneeling at the side of the bed, she met Al at eye level. The investigative blue eyes she looked at him with absorbed everything about him for just that moment – as if she had attempted to sponge up his entire existence. Those eyes inspected every aspect of his uncombed hair, scab-speckled cheek, baby soft skin and striking grey eyes. She reached out and cupped his cheek in her right hand – she could feel the warmth transfer into her hand as she pulled out a smile.

"You have lovely eyes," was all that was quietly said.

Al could feel his cheeks flush but did not seem to have the courage to say anything to her in response. He felt cautious about speaking, wondering why he thought she might cry.

The woman sharply pushed herself back to her feet. Though her body language was swift and precise, her tone remained soft, "Klose is fine; she's sleeping. You should rest more yourself. If you talk too much your throat will hurt," and she turned abruptly to exit the room.

Al brought his own hand up to touch his cheek. He stared with a child's wide eye ahead at the door that swung shut behind her. Slowly replaying the last few minutes in his mind, he wondered if he'd missed something.

On the other side of the closed door, beyond where Al could either hear or see, was the figure of the woman, leaning up against the backside of Al's closed door. She covered her face with her hands and sharply took a deep breath. She held it to a count of five and slowly exhaled hoping it would clear her mind.

"Ma'am?"

Her arms dropped instantly to her side and she shot her line of sight down the hall, "What?" the moment to collect herself had been interrupted.

The unintentionally intrusive young man hesitated, but his warming look of concern seemed to ease the moment, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," She pushed herself away from the door, "I'm fine." After straightened her shirt, she brushed the fallen hair from her face, "Sergeant, can you relay a message for me please?"

He blinked, "Of course…"

"Can you tell the Lt. Colonel that he needs to place some phone calls? Some one should head into the city and try to find Ms. Curtis. We should have them moved from here as soon as possible, for security reasons."

The young blonde man blinked, "Shouldn't that be something you relay to him?"

"You can do it; you're a big boy aren't you? Besides, that's an order," folding her arms with a huff she turned on her heels, "I'm going for a walk."

"You don't want to go for a walk with me instead?" the Sergeant dared to ask with a sly undertone.

Slowly turning a deadpan stare back at him, an annoyed response emerged, "No. Sergeant, go…"

"If you're going off to find the meaning of life, it's good to have someone to discuss it with you," He gave her an oversized loyal-puppy grin.

"Wh-what?"

"I was just saying. You look like you're going to go off and discover the meaning off life…"

"Sergeant Broche… if you DON'T…"

"I'm LEAVING, okay?" He turned away from her playfully, wandering away down the hall, all the while waving a hand back at her, "Happy?"

"Oh… my God," she shoved her hands in her pockets and spun on her heels. Before she could take two steps a young nurse stepped out from one of the rooms and into her path.

"Miss. Ross?"

_'I really want to go for this walk…'_ she glanced up to the woman, "Yes?"

"There's a telephone call for you."

_'I should have known I wouldn't get to go on this walk, dammit.'_ Giving into the inevitable, the Lieutenant followed the nurse, "Alright, thank you."

* * *

"When did they leave?" the Professor looked on in surprise, "I had on my calendar that they were leaving next Thursday."

"No sir, I'm sorry, they departed last night."

The Professor frowned a bit, "I'm getting too old, I'm writing dates down wrong," he glanced down at Edward and raised a concerned eyebrow.

Ed sat on the wooden stairs that lead to the front doors of the younger Oberth's home. His left elbow upon his knee, chin in the palm of his hand, the right arm propped up on the good leg and a scowl of frustration scribbled across his face. He glared back out into the setting sun as it submitted to the night. Edward cursed at the flaming ball in the sky and he was certain it merely laughed at him in return.

Herman Oberth, the man he'd set out to find, struggled through days and nights to get to, was not here. To make matters worse, the man had gone to Munich, where Ed had started out many days ago. Turning his foul expression back towards the doctor and the housemaid, he grumbled, "So when does the train depart for Vienna?"

The middle-aged woman employed by the Oberth family as their maid, adorned in a very long and formal looking dress with a spotless white apron covering it, gave a displeased look back at him as she responded, "6am, every morning."

The Professor grabbed Edward by the shoulder and coaxed him back to his feet, "There's nothing you can do about it, don't spread you mood around to other people. My son use to lash out when he'd get frustrated, I use to slap him upside the head if he got out of line. Don't you give me cause to discipline you."

Edward gave the man an unimpressed glare as he rolled his shoulder away, brushing his jacket off as he did so, "Sir, I don't need to be 'disciplined', thank you."

"In this town, we know who the parents are, we know whose children are who's. It's a parent's job to keep children in line, to watch over them and guide them. No matter how old you are, you are still someone's child. As long as there's someone out there old enough to be your parent figure, he or she can take the initiative to make sure someone's inheritance stays in line," the old man lectured, "Don't you think for a moment because you don't belong to this town you can show disrespect to your elders, nor will we will treat you any differently from our own if you do," The stern father gripped Edward's arm and hauled him inside, "I think it's a good time for tea."

A speechless Edward, adorned with a scolded child's expression, stumbled inside behind the doctor.

The housemaid, entertained by the fearless elder, smiled to herself and she shut the door behind the pair. She followed them into the dining room, where Ed and the Professor had sat down at the tapestry covered wooden table. The room was quite quaint, obvious that a feminine touch had handled the setup. The room was white from the ceiling to the baseboards that lined the pale-brown hardwood floor. The walls, the cupboards, the dishes, the tea towels were all freshly polished and washed. Occasionally, a tiny flower decoration was etched into certain corners of the chairs and cupboard doors; each painted a different pastel colour. The sheer white curtains hung over the 4-pane window that allowed the fading evening light to enter the room. A faint smell of bleach lingered in the air.

Though very striking and beautifully kept, Edward felt like he was back in the hospital again.

"What type business did you want with my son, anyways?"

"Oh," Ed blinked to attention and looked across the table to the professor, "I've been following the works of a few scientists; Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard and your son's as well."

The old man relaxed in his chair as he flicked a match to light up his pipe, "Ah, _that_," he inhaled slowly, "I'd thought as much; I mean with your arm and leg, only another scientist would seek out my son."

Ed sat properly in his chair, for some odd reason still feeling like a scolded puppy, "I'd read his works, even his early works; I was impressed that a thirteen year old could come up with such complicated gravimetric computations for flight in space. Since I began reading up on space flight, I've found his writings to be the most reliable source of information. I wanted to see if he'd be willing to discuss ideas and calculations."

The Professor coughed a bit from his polished wooden pipe, "I'm sure he'd be delighted. He gets too much harsh criticism from his peers; I don't think he gets much praise beyond Tilly and Valerie. Most people in the scientific communities treat him like an outcast."

Edward did not continue on the conversation immediately, he sat for a moment trying to decode the faint bitter tone of voice the man's voice had. Unsure if the attitude was directed towards his own son for his line of work, or for the peers who looked down upon him, Ed raised an eyebrow cautiously, "You disapprove of what he does?"

Tapping his pipe into an ashtray he shook his head, "I'm a selfish old man, wanting my son to follow in my footsteps. He went out of his way to please me, he graduated from the University of Munich and became a doctor just like his old man, but I knew his first love was not medical science. It was mechanical science."

Ed paused a moment before finally breaking formation and resting his elbows on the table, "I think the most successful engineers have doctors for parents."

"Perhaps, but Val told me one day that perhaps the boy is living out my father's dream and I use to think that old man was a fool for it," leaning back in his seat the Professor sighed, "but, I'll let him do as he wishes, I'm sure he'll be successful in what ever he does," the elder Oberth shoved the pipe back into his mouth.

Too curious not to ask, Ed continued the conversation as the housemaid presented glasses of steaming hot chamomile tea to their table, "Your father's dream?"

"My Father's dream," the Professor placed his pipe aside; "the old man embarrassed the whole family by declaring that someday man would stand on that rising moon."

Again a musing thought gave Ed cause to smile, "It seems strong grandparents give grandchildren a variety of aspirations."

The old man rolled his eyes and shot a dismissing glance outside, "I was a child when that happened, but all of Hermannstadt has laughed about it ever since. Now, look at what that old man has gone and done, inspired kids like Hermann and you."

Ed laughed with a slight bit of nerves at that comment, "It's something like that I guess." He lifted the cup of tea to his lips and took a sip of the warm, age-old beverage. Slowly, lowering the cup to its dish, the distant gaze in his eyes reflected back at him as the drink settled. How come no one, from the heart of London to the middle of Transylvania, made tea that had any flavour?

* * *

In a low voice, a woman's asked her companion, "Are you sure you don't want to sit down?"

"I'm fine," the man replied as he adjusted himself in the corner of the wall, "I can wait."

Armstrong glanced over his shoulder as if to hush the two whisperers. Not that he had the power to do so, since he was considerably out ranked by one of them. The lumbering officer turned back to Klose who continued to look away and out the window.

"Miss. Klose, would you please-"

"I'm not talking to you!" she snapped her head back at the daunting man. After all she had been through in the last 24 hours, his raging muscles and impossible figure did not strike any sort of submissive fear into her heart, "you separated us, you won't tell me how he is, you won't let me go see him, you won't let me see my father and you won't let me call my father. Does anyone even know where I am? Does he think I'm dead!" she paused to take a deep breath, "You won't let me leave my room, you call the military in and you sit here interrogating me as if I've done something wrong! Why don't you ASK HIM yourself!" Klose stuck her nose in the air and went back to looking out the window.

Havoc rolled his chewed cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other, glancing a 'what do we do?' look over to his superiors in the corner only to receive an annoyed eye twitch in response.

Armstrong tried again in a deep, pleading voice, "Klose, we simply-"

"Forget it!"

Klose's saving grace from Armstrong's forthcoming 'attempts of persuasion' came as everyone's attention turned to the room door as it slowly opened. Maria Ross pardoned herself and stepped into the room, gently shutting the door behind herself.

Armstrong looked back to her, "Lieutenant?"

She simply nodded in response to a question the Lt. Colonel did not have to ask. Movement from the corner came as the pair standing there stepped out. Lt. Ross stepped aside to allow them to pass by.

"Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, if we could?"

"Of course," Armstrong stood up allowing the pair to sit down on the bench that had been brought into the room. He gave a momentary glance over to Maria Ross.

"Klose."

Wrinkling her face more, she adjusted her right arm within the sling it was cradled in.

"Young lady, my name is Roy Mustang, I am a Brigadier General here in Central City. Do you understand why a Brigadier General would be in your hospital room? " he waited a moment to see if she'd respond, but no response was forthcoming. Mustang decided to move simply to the point of his questioning, "Edward Elric was, at one time, my subordinate. And his younger brother, Alphonse, was greatly involved with the military and its operations as well."

"Good for you!" she retorted with typically stubborn teenage manners, "Then why don't you talk to him about this! I don't see what this has-"

"By his own choice, Edward Elric cut off contact with the military," he had grown weary of listening to her game and even more so unimpressed by her childish behaviour, "yet the child in that room upstairs, by your claims, is his younger brother. That is something I am finding very hard to believe."

Havoc looked away from the conversation, grinding his cigarette end in his teeth, _'isn't information Edward supposed to be classified?'_

Klose continued to look away, yet the comments Mustang had just made ran through her mind, "Elric could be a very common name for all I know."

The resolution in his voice was clear and concise, "I have no intention of marching into a room upstairs when I have a little girl sitting in front of me who thinks she's being smart by adding little lies each time she repeats her story," hints of frustration began to mount in his tone, "and we are not leaving this room until you start cooperating. Have I made this situation clear to you?"

Lt. Ross smiled to herself, _'He's being very careful with that young boy upstairs.'_

"Fine!" Klose turned in her bed to them and with an intolerable attitude not used since she last disobeyed her father, her voice shot back at Roy, "Look, I met him at the train station, I don't know where he was going. I asked him what his name was because I thought his voice sounded familiar. I was told his name was Alphonse Curtis. I decided his name was Alphonse Elric because he sounded like he should be called that. I told you that name by accident. I was tired. He can't be the Alphonse Elric I know, because that one is older than me and didn't look anything like that. Are you happy NOW? I'm sorry that my mistake in his name has caused so much trouble, Mister Important!" She finalized her statement by throwing her fist down into the sheets with a huff.

Trying to atone for what was said when she first arrived at the hospital had become increasingly difficult and she only managed to dig herself a deeper and deeper hole. When asked who the young boy was that came in with her, Klose gave the name Elric. She had also brought up Izumi's name when the doctors wanted someone to contact for him. But the moment Armstrong stepped into the room she remembered that Alphonse was traveling under the name Curtis, not Elric. Klose had been trying to backtrack ever since

Lt. Ross slipped out of the room.

Roy's eyes narrowed at her. He tapped his knee with a finger as his mind dissected her outburst. Slowly slouching over, he rested his chin in his hand and wondered about an alternative line of questioning that had also been bothering him, "what were you two doing in that building?"

Klose flung herself back onto her pillow, "I don't remember. I remember smoke, I remember gunshots, and I don't remember anything else. I don't even remember when I broke my shoulder. Okay? I'm sorry."

Armstrong rose up behind his superior officer, "You heard gunshots?"

"You were in that market?" Roy's tone perked with interest. They had not been found anywhere near the market crowds, but on the opposite block where they'd managed to escape.

Klose looked over at the pair of military men; the sudden change in questioning was far easier to share, "Yeah. We followed someone into an alley. We looked back and saw a lady out in the street get shot, so we ran," she put her hand to her forehead where a bandage was taped covering the stitches she'd received, "um, the building exploded and we ended up in the other building after that."

Armstrong folded his hefty arms, "Who did you follow into the alley? Did you see who shot the lady?"

Mustang did not toss an additional question in, thought suddenly he had a mounting list of them. He simply watched her facial expressions as she responded.

"No," Klose replied, feeling as thought she was letting someone down by not being able to help identify anyone, "the alley was dark and it was just something moving in there. Man shaped shadow I guess. The lady just fell to the ground. I think it was the first gunshot before all the noise. She was just a street vendor and didn't even see it coming."

Armstrong nodded slowly. Klose looked up at him but towering man's questioning seemed to of finished for the time being. He finally thanked her and stepped back towards the door, "Lieutenant?"

Havoc perked up and followed behind the group as they left the room.

Mustang and Hawkeye, who had yet to lend her voice to the situation, were left in the room. They were the only other two out of uniform beyond Lt. Ross. Mustang sat, dressed in black pants, a white dress shirt and a pale grey/blue sweater. Riza's arms rested folded across her white blouse and a dark brown jacket matching the knee-length skirt she wore lay folded in her lap. By their appearances, they looked out of place among the men, yet Roy's presence in the room had managed to orchestrate everyone's actions like a master puppeteer over the last hour – even when he'd said nothing. Klose knew it. She wished he would leave, but something told her it wouldn't happen.

Outside the room, Havoc sighed, leaning up against the wall across from the room where his superiors still remained. He looked over to Armstrong, concern flashing through his eyes, "It was consistent with what we've heard so far about what's happened, isn't it? Gunshots first, explosions... other people saw the gunmen duck into the alleys."

"When they were in the alley, they must have prevented someone from setting off the last set of explosives," Armstrong nodded slowly, his voice sounding powerful even if he toned it down in thought, "to think those children made it out of that disaster alive the way they did."

"Two saving graces for the government anyways," Havoc sighed and stared up to the ceiling. He chewed the end of his cigarette off in his teeth before spitting it out onto the floor, "didn't the _bureaucrats_ disregard the rebel's threats as hot air? This is the third time in the last four months. We're not being taken seriously as a political state and the government is acting like none of this is happening. If they keep doing that-"

"Lieutenant," Armstrong interjected, his sobriety and composure he continually displayed ended the conversation. He looked down to the floor at the rolling cigarette, "This is a hospital, pick it up."

* * *

Once again, finding himself sitting upon his suitcase, Edward stared off into the pale grays and blues that began to emerge over the lush forest hills, signaling the beginning of sunrise. His thumb hooked through the clasp on his watch as he mindlessly twirled the chain-linked keepsake around at his side.

From the ancient second floor window of the elder Oberth's mediaeval styled home, the Professor's voice called out to Edward, "The sun isn't up yet, Vlad may be out. Watch your self."

"Huh?" Ed looked blankly over his shoulder up to the window, catching the watch cleanly in his hand. In the silence of the morning, he could hear the man descend the staircase within the house. Ed kept an eye on the door as the man took a moment to emerge, toting his leather bag of supplies.

"Who?" Ed asked again, straightening his vest as he stood up.

"Don't worry about it," the Professor laughed as the two began their early morning walk to the train station, "Simply a ghost story told to keep the children from playing in the streets all night long. It's teased about in Sunday school since the devil's house is so close to the church."

Scratching his cheek a little in confusion, Ed looked down at the stone path before them, walking to the beat of his counterpart's footsteps. He said nothing more. There was no way Ed could qualify the statement, he wasn't certain where it would head. His disinterest in religion haunted him wherever he went; it was a part of every day life on this side no matter what country in Europe he entered. It was something he had never encountered back home. Yes, there were religious groups, but for most people it wasn't part of daily life. Here though, no matter where he traveled to, religion and church was what many people based their lives off of. He was constantly reminded about people's sensitivity with the issue and always seemed to find people who believed that one religion or another was either superior or inferior. He could not understand why – they all sounded fundamentally the same to him. Over the last year he'd found his disinterest turn into a blanket of dislike of religious beliefs. This was certainly not helped by a speech given by the NASDAP Chairman earlier in April that he and his Father sat through. He'd learnt quite quickly after arriving in this world that it was simply safer to say nothing at all when the subject came up.

The two men walked in silence to the train station from the doctor's old home. Ed did not enjoy the walk he'd had the night before - from the hospital, over to one house and then to the next. It was as if the townspeople watched him from every angle and their gaze never let go. An unfamiliar face was quite uncommon and the war had put everyone on an edge where it was hard to feel safe; in a place where everyone seemed to know everyone else, no one knew him and therefore did not trust nor want his presence. It was somewhat of a relief that he had slept through the daylight hours. Oddly, doctor mentioned to him that from time to time he could tell Edward's first language was not German and that became another glowing label slapped on his forehead. He was thankful doctors were unprejudicial in nature. Though, language seemed to be something he picked up on quiet easily beyond the Gate and found he was quite skilled at learning. He'd never encountered a foreign language at home and had never heard of the majority of the ones beyond the Gate.

Approaching upon the train station that was now within shouting distance, the doctor stopped suddenly, "You're up so early!" he exclaimed in surprise.

Ed stopped as well, looking around to the young girl whom the doctor had just addressed.

"The cows have been so good in the mornings these last few days. Mother wants us to get everything we can from it," the tiny brown haired, hazel-eyed girl, who could not be more than 10 years old, sat her carton of glass milk bottles down onto the clay path.

"Your brother should be carrying those," the doctor's fathering tone returned to his voice, "what sort of young man lets a little girl carry things like this."

The girl suddenly waved her hands quickly, "No, no, I offered! I'm just taking these over to the store, did you want one Professor?" the girl held out a sealed bottle from the lot, but her attention turned to the on looking Edward. She hesitated, but finally offered, "or perhaps one for your friend?"

Ed raised his hands in defense sharply, "Oh no, no no… you should sell it at your store. It would be wasteful any other way," a guilt pain hit him having just finished lamenting over the unwelcoming nature of the town not long ago.

"The milk is best early in the morning," she smiled sweetly at him.

An uncomfortable sweatdrop ran down his cheek, "No… no, really, I had breakfast. I'm good for the day."

Folding his arms, the doctor shot a malicious look at Edward, "You should drink your milk – everyone knows that. It's good for your bones and will help you grow str-"

"I don't need to _grow_!" Ed's eye twitched unnaturally as a maddening look crossed his face, "I did that already! How come this never stops!" the circles under his eyes darkened as his eye twitched again, "Why is no one able to appreciate how getting this tall is the best things that has happened since I got here!" Ed slammed his foot down on the dry clay path causing a thin cloud of dust to arise at his feet, "that _milk_ is not going to change the fact I came this close to 170 before it stopped. So, I'd like to see _you_ find a bean this size!"

The doctor's blank look and the girl's dumbfounded expressions did not faze Edward as he lurched himself around and came nose to nose with the doctor.

"Well!"

The pair engaged in an unanswerable staring match between The Misunderstood and The Confused for a prolonged moment. Finally, glancing to the side momentarily, the doctor took a sharp step backwards, "Have a good trip, Edward Elric."

* * *

Broche leaned his chair back against the wall, balancing it on the two hind legs. He folded his arms across his chest and stared off into space.

"Don't let the chair slide out from under you," Lt. Ross came down the hall, the heels of her shoes echoing with each step she took.

Broche raised an eyebrow as he looked in her direction, "I'm a professional chair balancer, don't worry."

Shaking her head with a grin she leaned up against the wall next to him, "The Lt. Col. called out Mustang."

Broche rocked his chair back to four legs and looked up at his superior officer, "Isn't that what you wanted to happen when I delivered that message?"

"It was," her smile was distant as she relaxed a bit, "I thought he had the right to know what was going on. He may still be on leave, but he had many years of his life wrapped up with them. It would have been unfair any other way," Maria brushed her hair aside and stepped around the young Sergeant, "is he asleep?"

Stretching out his shoulders, Broche pulled himself to his feet, "Yeah I think so. I haven't heard a peep from him. Did you have a chance to talk with him much before you left?"

Shaking her head, the Lieutenant looked down at the door handle, "No, he seemed out of it. The doctors gave both of them some strong pain killers and the last thing he seemed to remember was that girl downstairs. He was really concerned for her. But…"

Broche frowned a touch, "Do you think that could be really him? I mean…"

Without hesitation Lt. Ross nodded firmly, "He is. It's just information isn't adding up," she glanced a puzzled look at the young officer, "Why does that girl insist he's traveling under Izumi's name? Where IS Izumi? Why would they not contact us if they were coming through Central? And where's Edward? Since when did those boys not travel together?"

Bringing his hand to his chin in thought, Broche frowned at the possibility, "Do you think Edward was caught in the explosions? That whole mess is still smoldering..."

"No," She rested her hand on the doorframe, "the first words out of his mouth would have been 'Where is my brother!' not 'How is Klose!' I don't understand. And that girl told you and the doctors a completely different story than the one she's telling now."

"I can't answer that one," Broche stretched out one more time and dropped himself back into the chair. From the corner of his eye he watched Lt. Ross pretending as though she did not want to go back into the room. He grinned to himself, "so why don't you ask him yourself? Alphonse has always been more honest with you than Edward ever was. You don't want him to disappear on you before you get a chance to chat some more. Right?"

Relenting easily she popped the door open, "I suppose you're right."

Cocking his head with a smirk, Broche quipped as she walked into the room, "Of course I-"

"BROCHE!"

The panic in her voice threw him to his feet.

"Everyone probably thinks I'm dead," Klose groaned, cautiously rubbing the bandage on her forehead, "my head hurts still…"

Riza stood up a moment, grabbing the medical clipboard hanging off the end post of the bed, "I don't think they can give you anything else for another hour or two."

"And my shoulder hurts even more…" giving a long and emphatic whine for sympathy, Klose glanced over to Mustang hoping her complaining would give him cause to leave.

Riza gave Roy a similar, 'are we finished here?' glance as she re-attached the clipboard and sat down next to him again. He did not respond to either of their non verbal hints. Riza frowned.

"Sir?" she prompted him, "Should we inquire into the progress of the Lt. Colonel's investigation?"

Roy gave a reluctant sigh, "It would be prudent." Slowly he rose to his feet, rubbing his sore leg as he did so, wondering if it was ever going to heel properly. Gathering his coat, Roy paused a moment and stepped back over to Klose's bed. He slowly sat himself down at the foot of the bed looking over at her. Klose tried to avoid eye contact with him, fidgeting with her sheets to distract herself from him.

"Can you tell me…" he waited for her to look up at him before continuing on. If he could see how her eyes reacted to his questioning he could judge the truth in her statement. Luckily for his patience, Klose fell into his web, "Can you tell me how you got out from beneath that building and into the one we found you by?"

A knock came at the door; Riza glanced over but did nothing for it, she was intent to let the Brig. General finish.

"… I didn't get out from beneath a building…" she sat back slowly, confused by the question.

Roy frowned, "You had to have done that. You said you were next to a building that exploded," he adjusted himself at the end of the bed, "two of the three structures exploded outwards with enough force that the building walls entered the alleys. The floors collapsed down freely. An immense amount of debris was in the alleyways and streets."

Klose carefully ran that through her mind, "I don't understand… that's not what…"

"But the building Sergeant Broche found you two lying by was an office building the third structure toppled onto because one of the charges didn't go off. That was the building you came out of. The back alley was the separation between the two locations. It was filled with chunks of wall, flooring and general debris that would have been impossible to dig out of from below. Was there a pocket you two were in and how did you get out of it?"

Looking down into her lap, Klose tried to replay the moments in her mind.

"The explosion happened on your right hand side did it not?" Roy gestured to the obvious display of gashes, scabs, scrapes and bruises that centered heavily on the right side of her body, "You must have been in that back alley behind both buildings. If you had not made it that far, then when the building had exploded, you would have had no way to gain access to the area we found you in. You would have retreated to the market because of the debris. Now, if you were deep in the alley, near its other end, building two would have killed you before building three did."

Roy's matter-of-fact speech sent a chill into her spine, "We… turned a corner… and went another way."

"Fair answer. So, my question again was, 'how did you get out from under that pile of debris?'"

Klose sat there, her eyes in her lap, replaying the moment Al used the transmutation circle she'd drawn for him. She did not want to tell him that. Though, if what he was saying was correct, she could not dodge an honest answer. Her shoulders deflated, "I don't know."

A faint smirk crossed Roy's lips momentarily as he stood up, "I'll let you think on your answer. You've given yourself a high standard of deception, I expect you to do better than 'I don't know' later. I look forward to whatever story you concoct for me," the victory sarcasm dripped from his mouth, "I certainly hope it'll be as creative as the story you will give me for the 'unnatural hole in the wall' Sergeant Broche told us he found you two by."

Mustang threw his dark grey trench coat over his shoulders and let himself out of the room, followed closely behind by Hawkeye. Both of them stumbled to a halt when, immediately out of the door, they could move no further. Roy staggered back into the doorway, bumping Riza off balance. He looked back at her as the Lieutenant caught her balance, before the unnerved and suddenly annoyed Brigadier General glared down at what was deliberately blocked his path.

"Out of the way," he commanded in a tone interchangeable with 'Jump!'

Alphonse did no such thing. He stood before the pair in the washed out grey pants and white shirt the hospital had provided. His skin an unhealthy pale colour, his hair still a 'fresh out of bed' mess and the light circles under his eyes made his cross expression even more emphatic. In a similar commander's tone he replied, "Klose is in there and I want to talk to her."

The unmistakable voice, from an unfamiliar boy's face, shot into the hard shell of the normally steadfast man. For an urgent moment, a startled expression flooded into the Brig. General's good eye as it widened.

* * *

**To Be Continued...  
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* * *

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Author's Notes

Please feed the plot bunny, R&R is loved all the time!

I did not know if Oberth's father went by the surname of Krasser or Oberth, I chose Oberth.

'Vlad' has nothing to do with religion - Ed simply has no idea what the old man is talking about.

Roy and Armstrong are very hard to write. Roy's constant composure makes it difficult to capture the wonderment that is Roy without doing a disservice to his character. And Armstrong because… he's just sooo much easier to have in silly scenes!

Incase You're Curious

Oberth is an interesting man to research. If you like FMA and want to avoid homework, I suggest it as good reading – it'll probably do you good when the movie comes out.

Schässburg (Schäßburg) is the German name for the city, its Romanian name is Sighişoara.

Hermannstadt is now called Sibiu.

Chapter 52 Feedback

:D I'm really glad people liked it.

Izumi's Husband Thing - Um... oops! (where's an emoticon when I need one) Hmm... I'll work that in somehow... hopefully.

Angewandte Chemie - I thought it was a (science?) periodical or magazine of some sort. The European database of periodicals and newspapers I found listed it as a per-volume publication running from 1887 to 1941. Beyond what the handy-dandy PDF told me I would not be any of the wiser :3;;

Weiner Zeitung - Weiner was how the the paper's website had it spelt, er :D;;; I can blame them?

Yay! I like feedback :D

**2010-05-30:** Fleshed it out like the last chapter and I hope the improvement is well received. It certainly didn't need the same kind of TLC that the prior chapter did. The original version remains in my Live Journal account. I may only do touch ups to these first two chapters unless I notice any outrageous errors at some point as I'm re-reading my story. Pre-edit word count was 9,664, post-edit is now 10,114.

Thank you and enjoy!


	3. Those Who Chose To Watch Over Him

**He Who Searches For Himself**_  
(Chapter originally uploaded 2004-11-29. Edited 2011-10-30 for punctuation and clarity)_

* * *

_"Hm… well, his name was Roy Mustang and he was a Colonel in the army. He was distinguished as being a fighter in Ishibal and knowing how to master fire through alchemy. He was one of the first military personnel you ever met, and you guys spent a couple of years out East under his supervision. I don't think Ed ever liked him too much, but you never seemed to be upset with him like Ed always was. BUT, then again, Ed always had a chip on his shoulder. Um… I did get to ride on the train once with his lieutenant. She was dedicated to him and what he stood for. I suppose they were good people. Those two and their comrades went out of their way to make sure you guys were okay – to look out for you and to protect you. I don't know what else I could tell you about him that you'd want to know…"_

**Part III – Chapter 54 – Those Who Chose To Watch Over Him**

Biting down on an apple, Ed scanned the corner store's book and magazine stand. With his train out of Vienna not leaving for another three hours, the decision was made that he should actually see something in the city, rather than grow old sitting at a bench. Holding the ripe apple in his teeth, Ed picked up a local paper and quickly skimmed it over.

"Looking for something in particular?"

Flipping the print shut, Edward returned it to the rack, "Nope," he dropped the apple into his hand, "I'm just killing time."

The man tending the stand leaned over a rack of magazines as he eyed Edward, "Where are you going?"

As if the connection between Edward and traveling was unnecessary, he replied, "Back to Germany."

The man's thick black eyebrow twitched, "What the hell is with all the Germans?" he shook, "you'd think all of you would still be too embarrassed to show your faces outside of your country."

Ed snorted at the comment, "Why do you assume I'm German?"

With a shrug the man replied, "You said 'Back to Germany'. No other reason to go to Germany unless you live there. Half the country still discovering how to build houses, the economy is horrid, and taking us down with it. The politicians sound like they can't tell what colour the sky is, PLUS the dirt I'm standing on is worth more than your Mark."

"I suppose those can be good reasons," Ed responded casually, like the man's comments meant nothing to him, and he gnawed on his apple a bit more.

"And then you think you can walk into Vienna and pawn off your propaganda on us!" the man's voice continued to rise.

Ed rolled his eyes and looked over at the keeper, "Who's handing out propaganda?"

At the question, the man abruptly knelt down behind his stand. Tilting his head in curiosity, Ed waited for him to rise again. Suddenly a magazine launched into the air and Ed grabbed it by its fluttering pages before it could make contact with the ground.

"Take it back with you. Just because the NSDAP Chairman used to live in this city, it does not mean everyone here is going to follow that type of thinking."

A look of confusion had become etched on Ed's face while he smoothed out the publication in his hands, "What is it?"

"Its garbage is what it is. Some guy, Hess I think he said his name was, came through here the other day and asked me to hand out some of those," the man continued on as Ed examined the cover, "I put it on the shelf too; I'd seen another stand with it downtown. Damn fool I was, I should have read it first. My mother broke down in tears when she saw it."

Flipping to the index page, Ed scanned the publishing and content index trying to catch what was so wrong with this obviously German magazine. The man prattled on showing little concern for the lack of attention Ed was giving him. Through the man's noise, Edward placed the magazine down upon the table to examine it further. Biting into his apple again Edward stalled as he was about to flip beyond the index. With a swift flick of his left wrist, Edward took the apple from his mouth and placed it atop of the magazine stand, "Eckart…?" his voice ringing with disapproval.

The shopkeeper eyed Edward's apple unimpressed before looking back over to him, "I said Hess, that's nothing like Eckart."

Flipping the magazine shut, Ed glanced over to the man, "No, Eckart is the editor of this magazine."

As if his voice could bite, the shopkeeper stepped out from behind his stand, "Someone you know?"

"Someone my Father's met," Ed rolled up the magazine in his hand, and tucked it under his right arm, "this is garbage right?"

"Take it!" the man waved an arm emphatically, "take your food with you too!"

Snatching up his apple, Ed turned and walked away from the riled shopkeeper. Taking a final bite of his apple, Ed threw it into the street-side trash, making his way back to the train station.

* * *

Al clenched his fists to disguise any sign of shaking as he stared up to the man who stood in his path. Forcing as much determination into his gaze as he could encourage, Al was surprised to find himself winning the stare-down. The soldier standing before him suffered from a momentary loss of words.

"I…" Al hesitated - he could force himself to look stern, but his demeanour could not so easily be overcome, "I heard what you were talking about in there."

The pause in the young boy's words gave the startled Brigadier General a chance to recompose himself. Mustang's overwhelmed expression vanished and he stiffened his jaw while his good eye analyzed what stood before him. Mustang said nothing which obviously sent a sting of nerves through Alphonse.

"You don't need to treat Klose like that if she doesn't know anything," the circles under Al's exhausted eyes turned a shade darker while challenging the man he realized was a high ranking officer of some sort, even though he wasn't dressed like it.

After a moment of pause, Roy took a backwards step into the room. Riza backed up as well, allowing a path for Al to enter. Not expecting his strategy to have worked, Al's determined disposition vanished away from his face and it left him standing puzzled in the hall. Unsure for a few moments if he should proceed, Al finally stepped past them into the room. He felt everyone's eyes, dressed with unnerved expressions Al could not identify, following his every step. Without glancing back, the boy's mind wandered back to the first man he'd encountered – the man with the eye patch – and Al innocently wondered what might have happened.

Alphonse made his way over to Klose and Roy watched as the two children embraced. Their ensuing chatter echoed outside of his thoughts to allow his mind time to decipher what was going on. He glanced over to Riza, catching her distant expression as she watched Alphonse and Klose. The sense of someone watching her grabbed the woman's attention and she looked over to Roy. The look in her eyes asked nothing but questions and the expression upon his face provided no answer.

"Alphonse," Roy's firm release of his name startled the young boy and he quickly looked over.

A hint of frustration crossed the Brigadier General's expression; the more he thought about the boy standing in front of him, the more questions he had that needed answering and Roy did not appreciate being left to openly wonder. Though he had Al's attention, Roy paused their moment in time, unsure which question would be the most appropriate one to ask. An uneasy thought crossed Roy's mind – this boy may not be the youngest Elric. Yet, for the few moments he'd been in the boy's presence, every fibre of the man's being told him otherwise, and he'd never been one to distrust his own instinct.

"What are you doing here in Central?" Roy's question was blunter than he'd intended, but the confusion and frustration was growing.

Taken aback by the abrupt question, Al took a more defensive posture, "There was a train delay." His answer was accurate and direct and not at all what Mustang wanted to hear.

"And you did not bother to contact anyone…?"

Confusion and exhaustion fuelled Al's confrontational tone, "Why would I need to contact anyone?"

Roy let out a forceful sigh, perfecting his posture as he did so. His authoritative gaze rained down over Al, "I'm finding it hard to understand that _you_ did not believe anyone would not be concerned."

Al glanced back to Klose, puzzled by the phrasing of the officer's statement, but Klose's voice rang out and it distracted Al from his concerns.

"Central isn't a place that you have to register to get into. It's enough that they're making people carry around identification now."

"We had identification and train passes anyways, so there's no reason for me to have to register with the city! Why would a city this huge care about what visitors it gets!" Al's defiant voice rang out. Perhaps a logical conversation would have commenced if Al hadn't felt so crushed under his own tired weight. The raising of his voice caused Al to cough again and he crawled up onto the bed next to Klose to wait for it to subside. The cough began to clear as he sipped some water from a glass on the nightstand. Al sat at the edge of the bed, his legs dangling over – legs only long enough for his tiptoes to touch the ground. He looked back at the officers with one hand at his chest from the coughing. There was a sudden change in the officer's expressions and it froze both Al and Klose and they stiffened as Riza began to approach them. Her high-heeled shoes echoed in the room as she moved, quieting when she stopped, and then the woman crouched down before the young boy.

"Alphonse…" her voice sounding distant, "how old are you?"

His answer sent a shiver through the room, "Eleven."

The Brigadier General's brow wrinkled in displeasure of his own misperception. The voice of Alphonse Elric in the armour had never aged and never matured; the voice had remained constant. The mind's eye image of what Al would look like never evolved. Though knowing full well that Alphonse Elric would be 16 by now, the mental image Al's voice had given everyone never reflected his actual age. If the Philosopher's Stone had been used, like Ed had desired for his younger brother, then why was Al here like this? Could this boy be Alphonse Elric without a doubt? Suddenly, a new list of questions sprang up.

"That's not possible," Roy's voice cut through the room. All eyes turned to him as he stepped up behind Riza. His single eye glanced back to Klose, a momentary concern for her presence was quickly disregarded as he spoke again, "the Philosopher's Stone Edward said he had would have bypassed any law of Equivalent Trade."

Al's eyes widened abruptly.

Roy frowned, "That does not explain how it is possible for you to be here… like this."

* * *

"Ed!"

The voice calling the name was not distinguishable above the noisy crowd at the train station in Munich.

"Ed! Edward! Dammit, over here! EDWARD!"

By chance Edward glanced over his shoulder and spotted the waving hand within the crowd, "What the…?" his voice suddenly full of displeasure and confusion. Shoving through the crowd, Ed turned off of his aimless path and headed towards the young man calling for him.

"Ah! Thank God…" the teenager, just old enough to be officially considered a man, stepped through the crowd to join Ed.

Shaking the hair from his face, Ed moved to within earshot, "Hoffie, what are you doing here?" his voice heavy with an unimpressed undertone that his listener did not pick up on.

"Professor Hohenheim asked me to pick you up, he couldn't get away," he announced as the two made their way through the thinning crowd.

Ed was surprised by the comment, "You mean the telegram I sent in Vienna actually made it?" he swung his briefcase over his shoulder, "strange things happen now and then it seems. I was sure I'd have to catch a taxi or walk."

Edward's younger companion put his hands in his pockets as the two began to walk, "And that's probably why the professor asked me to pick you up."

Giving a sigh, Edward narrowed his eyes. Some days he simply did not appreciate his father's concern over his physical state - Ed was not an invalid. Besides which, he had been having far better luck with the leg than he was with the arm anyways, "Hoffie, I don't need to be babysat. If I can take off to the vast land of Rumania, I can certainly trek across the even vaster land of Munich," Ed's sarcasm rained down upon his companion.

"I'm sure you can," the young man said with complete disregard to Edward's tone, "and stop calling me that!"

"There's nothing wrong with calling you Hoffie," Edward knew the question was coming and rolled his eyes as they exited the station and out into the bustling streets of mid-day Munich.

"How the hell did you come up with 'Hoffie'! It sounds like something a kindergartener would say!" the younger man's disapproving scowl eyed Edward.

"Hoffie is?" Edward looked up at a sickly blue sky; "I've called you Hoffie for years…"

"And I've objected for years!" he took a swift, deep breath in through clenched teeth, "it sounds like a disease, or something."

Ed flashed a cocky smirk back in response, "And so now that you're a big 18-year-old-boy, I can't call you Hoffie? Your father thinks it's funny at least."

"You're not much older than me, so don't lecture me like that," the young man gave a defeated exhale and simply shook his head, "What's wrong with calling me Al?"

"I am not calling you 'Al'," Ed's emotionless tone slapped his listener across the face, leaving no room for negotiation on the issue.

Reaching into his pocket for a set of car keys, Albrecht Haushofer opened the door for Edward, "Everyone else calls me Al," he nearly whined to Ed like a child pleading to their mother for a wedge of chocolate from the corner store.

Ed sat himself down abruptly in the passenger's seat, "I will not call you Al."

Adjusting himself in the driver's seat, Albrecht turned the key in the ignition, "Could we settle on Albrecht at least?"

"No, I like Hoffie."

Albrecht slammed his foot down upon the gas pedal and lurched the car forward. The corner of Ed's mouth curled upwards as he grinned to himself. From there on two moved through the city in silence. Ed's mind drifted and he began to lose track of time as the drive wore on. His eyes following the edge of the sidewalk – it caught his attention that yet again the city's garbage removal team had possibly gone on strike again. If it wasn't apparent by simply looking at it, he could certainly smell the rotting materials from time to time. A few moments later, Ed jolted as the car was brought to a stop.

"Did you want to head out _there _or just go to the University?" Albrecht asked, stopping the car at the campus parameter.

"I'd rather be here," Ed's voice suddenly sounded tired as he looked over to one of the university entrances, "I can still get in if I change my mind." As he stepped out from the car, Edward turned back to look inside, "Say… do you know when Hess went to Vienna?"

Albrecht laughed at that, "Last weekend. You were busy off at the central office trying to locate that Obergg-something-er-other."

"Did he really think that trying to corrupt shop owners in Vienna would do him any good?" Ed leaned up against the side of the car as he spoke, "I think they're kind of mad."

Shrugging a bit, Albrecht spoke with a disturbingly encouraged tone, "What do you mean 'corrupt'? He does what he has to. Rudolph wants to make sure he's the right hand man when they push again for a leadership change – he has to show his support and allegiance. I suggested he decentralize a bit; get his ideas out to more than just the German people. Talk to the Austrians and Hungarians and get an allegiance of supporters outside of the country as well; alliances are needed internally and externally. You know that filth is everywhere holding back the progression of a better Germany, you know that they're the cause of what's bringing down this country; we can't delude ourselves by denying that they aren't out there in places beyond the German countryside. Father said that one of the main reasons for our humiliation was the fact we were naive in understanding the countries, people and terrain around us. Hess agreed that if we could get more than just the German people to understand, it would be easier to rebuild Eastern Europe with a better, stronger image."

A mocking grin crossed Edward's face as he prepared to shut the car door, "You're looking to get into someone's good books. Have you thanked your dad yet for setting up the meeting with him?"

"Oh yeah!" Albrecht replied enthusiastically, "and Rudolph is in touch with the chairman himself - they've been making big pushes for the title of Fuhrer. My father said they're pretty good friends. I'm hoping that I can get my ideas to someone right up at the top. I really want to see these people prosper again, all I've seen this country do is suffer through war."

Ed paused a moment, drumming his fingers upon the roof of the car, "Seems so, doesn't it," he shut the car door heavily and began to walk towards the east side doors. His expression darkened with each step as he thought about their conversation.

* * *

A long silence ensued before Al re-addressed the man who felt like he towered over him, his face slowly falling at the words Mustang spoke. Finally he shook his head and a solemn voice emerged.

"Something always has to be given up in order to obtain something else."

Though the recollection of his first day was simply a hazy memory of Roze, Izumi, and what he had come to discover was a golem named Wrath, Al's recollection of his second day back was far clearer. He could remember Aunt Pinako bringing him chicken soup as he lay in bed and the memory of his toes and fingertips tingling like they were asleep seemed to stick in his mind. After the day had worn on, Al had gone up to Winry's room where Roze had spent the night – her baby in a makeshift crib nearby. Izumi came up to sit with Al as he slowly rocked the crib the child slept in. He asked his teacher where his brother was and was told a regrettable white lie - Ed was in Central. The unnerving memory of Izumi hugging him as they sat upon the floor, and the baby crib creaking as it swayed, was the clearest thing in his recent memory.

And then Winry came home. She had gone to the train station the day before to see a friend off and ended up spending the night in town at the request of a local mechanic who needed an extra hand. The opportunity to keep herself distracted was welcomed until the morning when Nelly relayed a message from her Grandmother that she should return home as soon as possible. Al heard Winry's voice as she came in through the door; the odd out-of-touch feeling he'd felt all day started to lift. Winry hadn't been told of Al's situation and Pinako barely had 'Al's in your room' out before her granddaughter took off to see him.

And then Al realized something was terribly wrong.

With a scream, Winry dropped to her knees on the wooden bedroom floor. Al felt his body unwillingly tremble at the sight of the woman she was – it wasn't right. Never returning to her feet, Winry fumbled her way over to Al as Izumi stepped aside. She rocked with him in her arms on the floor while she cried. All Al could do in return was sway with her like a rag doll while the sense of displacement became overwhelming. The baby began to cry.

As things settled down that night, Al and Winry sat on her bed – her arm draped around Al's shoulder like an older sister should when having a moment with the younger sibling. At that point the both of them learnt that the last five years of Al's memories were missing; there was nothing there either of them could use as a reference point. Al went so far as to laugh awkwardly at some of it, foolishly asking how his hot-headed brother would be able to affix a soul to a suit of armour and how he wished he could 'still' be over six feet tall.

Then Winry explained how he'd lost his body, about Ed's arm and leg, about their burnt down house that could be seen from her window, about Wrath and Ed's limbs, and about how Ed went into the military so he could return things to normal. Over the course of the next several weeks and ongoing months, she, as well as Izumi and Roze, shared select summaries of what they knew of the last five years.

The encounter with Barry, the name Envy, nor the figure that had the face of his mother was ever brought up. Though she shared information about some of the military personnel, Winry did not mention that any of these people were involved with her parents' death. She did not ever want to see Al go to the military for anything, not after all she'd seen them go through. And yet, Winry did not want Al to feel any resentment towards them either.

The Hughes' family was brought up; they talked about how Elysia had been born on Ed's birthday. Eventually Winry had to mention of his passing, but again, she did not elaborate. She did promise that the next morning she'd Al him something from Glacier's recipes. The abnormality that was Alex Louis Armstrong also came up which seemed to make Al giggle.

The careful recollection of Roze and Izumi's stories were relayed delicately to Al. Izumi told Al how Ed believed he could retrieve his body from 'The Gate'. She told him how they went to see Dante for information, but 'problems' arose that caused the boys to have to leave and it was not long afterwards that Dante died. Roze continued the story telling Al that Ed had ended up in Lior again, a place they'd discussed before, along with an Ishibal man named Scar and Dante's apprentice Lyra. Though he asked, none of them knew where Al had been before showing up in Lior.

Pinako, Izumi, Roze and Winry spent several late evenings discussing how to tell Al what happened next. Did they tell Al that he became the Philosopher's Stone? Do they reveal it to him gradually? Do they tell him that he finally got to meet his father and now can't remember what he was like?

_How do they tell him about how Ed died? _

Izumi was certain no amount of searching would turn Ed up by this point – the only way Al's existence had the remotest chance of being possible was if Edward had sacrificed himself. The five years of memories Al was missing was used to ensure success. That was the best conclusion she could come to. Roze apologized for not being able to describe much about her encounter with the sins or what on earth Lyra was up to. She explained to her adopted family how, at some point in time, she'd begun to lose touch with reality after encountering the homunculus for the first time and she did not regain consciousness until she witnessed the powerful image of Envy's arm ripping through Ed's chest. Winry left the table in tears at that point and it took the group a few moments to recompose themselves. Having no idea how much time had passed, what had gone on, or even when it happened; Roze could not explain why or how Al had become the Philosopher's Stone, only that he'd mentioned it before disappearing to bring Edward back.

Eventually Roze was entrusted with finishing the story to Al, who'd been asking about going to find his brother in Central. She started with the soldiers in Lior and how they had been sacrificed in order to obtain the Philosopher's Stone. Al listened with amazement as she told him the stone was then 'entrusted' to his care. Continuing on, Roze's story told of how Ed and Al left again to find the homunculus, who were after the stone so they could kill them. Hohenheim was never mentioned. She told Al that eventually the homunculus kidnapped him, and Izumi helped Ed get back to Central to find valuable location information from some friends from Xenotime. The location was where Izumi had eventually found Al, unconscious as a boy once again.

Roze finally told the youngest Elric that Edward had died after going there; one of the homunculus had killed him. Al was told that he then used the Philosopher's Stone to bring his brother back. Lyra, someone whom no one could give a proper explanation about, tried to get him to stop, but was unsuccessful. She, along with two other Homunculi, had vanished when the transmutation was executed. Roze explained to Al that when Ed finally re-woke, with a perfect set of arms and legs, he planned to destroy the location so no one else would have to die because of the Philosopher's Stone again.

Al finally found out, after Roze'd left with Wrath, that his older brother offered himself in exchange for Al's safe return. The place Ed had told Roze he would destroy had not been damaged.

Edward Elric was dead. To say Al was devastated was an understatement.

Weeks later, as he still tried to understand the information given to him and unsuccessfully get more info out of his family, Al asked Izumi why he'd disappeared and needed to be resurrected if he had the Philosopher's Stone. Izumi told him that life was not something even a mythical stone could create; something had to be given up in return. She hoped and prayed that they could detour him enough so he would never seek the stone for any reason. It was one of the few things she asked of him: not to search for the stone. There was another request that was heavily imposed on Al – not to seek out the military for any reason. This request came from the core of Al's family, whom had all grown weary of the years of mounting concern for their two sons.

So, as the two unfamiliar faces of Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang implored the young Alphonse Elric to tell them something, _anything_, the boy turned his back to them upon the bed; his eyes glancing up through the curtains to the end-of-day sky.

"I don't have anything for you," Al told them.

It was far easier for him to say that than it should have been, but the Alphonse Elric who sat there had no emotional ties to them. He did not even know their names; the only thing he could rely on was the words of the people he knew best. With respect to that, he refused to turn around. The longer they stood there, the more it hurt – it hurt both parties. And as time wore on Al realized more and more just how much he needed them to leave.

It burned in his chest… the questions he wanted to ask them… that he shouldn't.

* * *

"This is so frustrating!" with his feet kicked up onto the table and the phone and notebook numbers next to his feet, Edward slapped his hand over his face; the faux right arm dangling uselessly over the back of the chair. He let out a long and drawn out groan.

Hohenheim glanced up from his desk within the magnificent office. He adjusted his glasses, giving a slight chuckle to himself before looking back down at his paperwork. Ed shot his eyes over to his father, an unimpressed expression drawn on his face, "What?"

"I didn't say anything," the elder Elric replied without looking up.

"I don't need you to laugh at me," Ed let his leg clunk to the ground as he took his feet off the table, "you try finding someone in all these registries."

His father flicked to the next page in his notes, feigning disinterest, "You've been doing just fine on your own."

Ed dropped his head down on the desk and exhaled a 'pity-me' whine. He'd searched through what he could get of university lodging logs, hotel guest lists, and passenger logs for the last three days, but he could not find any information pertaining to the man he was on a mission to find: Hermann Oberth. To put further dampeners on his spirits, many of the registries, including the university, were being very strict with who had access to their manifests. He was unable to walk in and ask for information.

"Why don't you ask Albrecht to check into the university guest book? His girlfriend works for the registrar, doesn't she?" Hohenheim suggested while jotting down a few notes beneath the flickering light.

Ed sat slouched in his chair glancing over to his father again, "Why don't _you _ask Professor Haushofer to ask his son to ask his girlfriend to do that?"

Hohenheim rolled his gaze up from the paperwork, eyeing Ed from over top the rim of his glasses; the expression was enough that Ed did not need to hear a verbal no. Ed leaned his chair back upon two legs, and then let it drop back to four quickly as he stood up. Flicking the top button of his dress shirt undone in the warming room, Ed walked over to his father's polished oak desk and snatched up a wrapped chocolate from a bowl, "Isn't there anyone you can send me to?" he sucked on the chocolate in his cheek.

Hohenheim returned the dip pen into its holster and sat back in the chair, "The moment I inquire into the registrar's office, it'll be gossip. It's not a division I have anything to do with."

"What ever happened to that Angela girl who worked down in filing?" Ed frowned a bit.

His father shook his head, "She transferred months ago," he drifted in his sentence as a hand came to his chin, "… you can ask her though, she's in the library doing bookkeeping. She might know someone who can get you a bigger list."

Giving an affirmative nod, Ed tossed the wrapper into the garbage and gazed up at the bookcase wall his father had filled, draining his mind momentarily from the stress he'd put himself under. Illuminated faintly by the flickering lamp on the desks, Ed looked over the collection encompassing the entire left wall. The curtains behind Hohenheim's desk were drawn – the deep red veil allowed no natural light to seep through.

"Why don't you just go down to the mechanics building and ask about him?"

Edward nearly choked on the candy, "You've got to be kidding. Some of last year's students are still kicking around with the equipment and I'm not their favourite person. Besides, Oberth wasn't one of their favourite people either, from what I heard. I doubt he's around there." With a thud, Ed sat himself back down at the cluttered table in the grand expanse of an office.

Watching his son sit at the extra table in the room, Hohenheim stood up from his own desk, giving the bottom of his vest a tug he stepped over to Edward. "You're going to show him the Goddard report?" he eyed the envelope that lay within Ed's mess of papers.

"I heard he was looking for it. It's practically impossible to find here," reaching out, Ed slid it in front of him, "there are some really good theories in here that Oberth hasn't quite gotten to yet. I think it'll help him with his research. I'd like to know what his opinion is on a lot of this stuff. Speed calculations, fuel requirements, stratosphere pressures, oxygen requirements, combustion rates;... I'm still lost on a lot of this stuff."

Hohenheim looked down from the corner of his gaze upon his son for a moment. A grin crept across his face as he put a hand down upon Edward's head and ruffled up his hair, "You'll do alright."

"Hey!" Edward swatted away his hand, "dammit all! Don't do that." Ed reached back and pulled the ponytail out of his hair to re-do it. The responses Ed gave to his father's affections had evolved over time: it was no longer rageful comments of exasperation, it was more like a knee-jerk reaction he gave, especially when his father felt it appropriate to mess up his hair.

As he headed towards the door, Hohenheim turned back to ask a question before leaving the room. He stopped before ever speaking, instead he watched as Edward struggled to retie his hair. He wondered how to interject, "Is your shoulder bothering you again?"

"It's fine," Ed snapped.

Giving an unimpressed frown, Hohenheim walked back towards his desk. Even if the young man wanted to deny it, his father could see that the arm did not have the proper mobility it was supposed to. Opening the bottom right hand drawer, he produced a small leather case from within and headed back towards Edward, "Here -"

Ed turned quickly to face his father, like it was his method of backing away. Ed stood with his hair gathered in his good hand at the back of his head, "Go get your coffee or whatever it was you were going to get." His voice tried to encourage his father to bugger off - it was unsuccessful. With an unrelenting hold, Hohenheim grabbed Edward at the shoulder, turned him about face, and then firmly replanted his stubborn son down in the table's wooden chair. He tossed the case into the mess of papers; it landed with a heavy clunk.

"I don't need you to do this," dropping his hair, Ed tried to move his father's hand from his shoulder.

"Hold your hair back," the firm, authoritative, and nonnegotiable tone of voice caused a reactionary snatch of his hair. Letting his pride slip away from him, Ed's defensive posture wilted with a glare. Sliding his hair over his good shoulder, Ed reached for the leather case upon the table. Opening it, he pulled out a flat head screwdriver and thrust it at his father's hand.

"_Fine_, do something about it," the disapproving voice Ed would use when Hohenheim insisted on looking after his arm had also evolved over the years. Though he would be quick to deny it, Edward's display of displeasure had become an act rather than actual anxiety towards his father's attention. Fading over the years was the demoralization he once felt from being cared for by the man. So grossly independent, Ed had never wanted to accept his father's assistance from the day he re-encountered the man in a London hospital; unable to stand or move about on his own. Yet, Hohenheim had started to notice quite some time ago that his son's bitterness was no longer prevalent in his defiant actions or words. Edward had begun to sound more like a child who disapproved of going to bed than anything else. Something within that behavioural evolution let Hohenheim feel at ease; he never commented on the change, but simply played along. He wondered sometimes if Ed realized that they played this game with each other, or if he simply denied himself that awareness. The elder Elric found that he'd come to enjoy the denial exercise his son played with him. Eventually, he'd come to feel there were days Edward would give in so easily it seemed as though he enjoyed the attention Hohenheim gave him.

Ed tossed the hair tie onto the desk in a childish display of displeasure. He undid another button on his shirt so his father could tighten a screw at the back of his shoulder.

"You must have felt this for days," Hohenheim's voice rang with a scolding disapproval as he examined the burden connected to his son's right shoulder.

Ed's face soured; glancing to him, "I had other things I needed to—geh…" he cringed, as his father brought the feeble contraption of an arm to shoulder's height.

"Don't bite your tongue," adjusting the tool at the bolt, he gave it a firm twist as he tightened it into the back of his shoulder blade. Ed lurched in his seat before withering under the pain of the bolt digging into the bone. Hohenheim let go of the arm that fell limp at Ed's side. Dropping his forehead on the table, Ed gave a staggering sigh. He knew the pain would pass, he simply hated having the major connectors adjusted – they hurt the most. Ed didn't wait for the indescribable sensation to pass before lifting his head from the table; he rotated his right shoulder the best he could as he felt his father's hands straighten his shirt collar for him.

"Better?"

Ed cracked his neck as Hohenheim returned the screwdriver to Ed's left hand, "No, I feel worse," came the snarky reply.

Again, with an amused roll of his eyes, Hohenheim shook his head at his son.

As Edward began to put the screwdriver away, his attention became diverted. The golden eyes looked at the table where he intended to put the case and tried to identify what was missing. Before he was given a chance to figure out what he was searching for, the younger Elric abruptly froze.

Sensing the ringing displeasure that was to come, Hohenheim's hand landed upon what was now a stiff shoulder; its presence there encouraging the sudden tension to give way. Sitting ridged in the chair for several indecisive moments, Ed finally slouched over, his helpless gaze cast down to the wooden paneling of the floor as he gave no contest.

"Did you want me to bring you some tea?" Hohenheim asked as he ran a pocket comb once more through his son's hair; pulling it up into the elastic tie.

"No," Ed's relinquished voice sounded.

Stringing the fine strands of blonde hair through the tightening elastic loops, he continued, "Coffee?"

"No," Ed replied once more, with no more life than he had before.

Upon adjusting the tied ponytail, Hohenheim gave Ed a light pat on his good shoulder as stepped towards the door again, "No cream, three sugar?"

"Sure."

Hohenheim paused holding the door handle in his hand, "I'll be right back."

"Yeah, thanks," not yet able to lift his heavier arm up from under the burning pain, Ed reached his good hand back and ran the length of ponytail between his thumb and index finger.

* * *

This day, dressed in uniform, Lieutenant Ross sat in a cushioned chair in the curtain-closed room. A little blueberry scented candle graced the table on which the water pitcher and a basket of freshly cut garden flowers sat; the candle light flickering patterns upon the wall through the distilled water. Atop the covers of the neatly folded bed, Alphonse lay quietly and Maria was unsure if he was asleep or not. Al had stopped speaking to anyone the day before and Maria had come to realize how profoundly that had affected everyone if the vicious tongue-lashing given by Brigadier General Mustang to herself and Sergeant Broche about their poor attention to Al's whereabouts was any indication.

The opened door woke her from her daydreaming state as she glanced up to her underling sergeant, "Ma'am, Klose's father is downstairs."

In a quiet voice she spoke in response, "Any word on where Izumi is?"

"No, I haven't heard," Broche replied, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him, "is he feeling better yet?"

Lt. Ross gave a hefty sigh as she slouched tiredly, "I don't know."

"Um…" Broche hesitated for a moment, "the prime minister wants to see them… Al and Klose," he watched as Lieutenant Ross's eyes look up at him, "I guess his wife has been in the hospital, she's been rather sick lately. But they caught wind of their stay here and want to meet them."

Maria gave a disgusted snort, "Political propaganda again."

Raising an eyebrow in confusion, Broche pressured her to explain what she meant by her comment.

"Oh come on. As if the 'people and family friendly' image is anything but a charade. The man hastily marries a younger woman, they adopt one of the infant orphans, and now they're parading around as if they're the perfect couple to lead us into this 'new era'," she straightened herself in her seat, "I'd have been happier if the man would worry about this country before worrying about his image."

Broche grinned a bit, "Oh come on, they're trying at least. We've seen political changes in other countries. It's not easy. It hasn't even been a year yet," he sat down in the vacant chair next to hers, "besides, I heard they're actually really good people. Can't you appreciate that at least?"

Lieutenant Ross simply rolled her eyes again at him, "We're not going to argue this in here." She stood up and walked through the candle lit room towards Al who lay curled up atop the covered bed; he had not turned over to face them since the night before.

"Alphonse," Maria whispered, "If you need anything, we'll just be outside, alright?"

Broche took his cue to exit the room, holding the door open for his superior. Hearing the door click shut behind them, Al slowly glanced over his shoulder. The sorrow he'd felt for himself and the people around him that he wished would stop haunting him had faded overnight. Now, he simply wanted to get out of the hospital and find Izumi. His eyes looked around the room for an exit that was not his third floor window. While his mind ran through scenarios, he could hear the voices in the hallway becoming more prevalent. Before being given a chance to roll back up on his bed and feign exhaustion once more, the door swung open.

Slowly, Al crossed his legs upon the bed. He looked towards a moderately built, slightly out of shape, grey haired father figure of a man in the doorway. Appearing to be in at least his 50s, his gaze looked upon Al with curiosity.

"He looks a bit older than I thought he would for someone of his age."

Al's cheek twitched in confusion at the statement. His expression began to lift when he caught the displeased expression in the eye of the man who'd interrogated him last night.

Outside of the room Hawkeye and Havoc flanked a visually displeased Roy Mustang, who was still out of uniform, though his officers came today dressed to represent the nation. Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Broche both stood outside as well, seemingly confused by what was going on.

"Alphonse Curtis, was it?" The man gave Al a smile, "you're looking healthier than I'd been lead to believe."

Al's defensive posture caused him to draw back, narrowing a puzzled gaze at the man.

"Ah! No don't worry, I'm not a mind reader," the man's well-meant attempt at a jolly disposition tried to ease the tension, "That sour looking officer out there told me that's who you were."

Al glanced past the man to catch Roy's gaze once again trained upon him. He stared back at his frustrated observer with a look of surprise and confusion. After all the trouble Al had caused for them, caused with Klose, how angry he'd made them the night before... what was this man doing identifying him with the assumed Curtis name when he obviously knew otherwise?

"Now young man, that Colonel Mu-"

"Brigadier General, sir," the words dribbled from the corner of Roy's mouth.

"That Brigadier General Mustard ov-"

"Must-**ANG**"

Al found himself giving the situation a light giggle as he glanced away from the doorway gathering to the man who was now standing over him. The elder gentleman, dressed in a fine grey suit and tie sat down on the bed next to Al, "That Brigadier General Mustang over there says that you're a very lucky boy. And he also says your mother, Izumi, is missing."

A pinch of concern started to swell in Al's chest at the thought of his missing teacher. It had been days since he'd last seen her.

"I want you to be assured that we're doing our best efforts to find her," the elder man continued on, "but until then you're invited to be my guests. You two children are a symbol of this country's will to survive. I want to make sure you're treated as such."

Al raised an eyebrow at the man in surprise.

The scowl on Roy's face darkened as he moved into the doorway, "Does the government not have anything more important to do than worry about these children? I told you that we were perfectly fine to look after him until his mother is found. I know a family that would be more than willing to-"

Dawning a similar gaze of dissatisfaction for Roy's interference, the elder man cut him off, "The military does not have the same authority as it used to have; you seem to forget this Mr. Mustang."

Al's eyes drifted over to the frustrated man in the doorway, '_ … Mustang…?_'

"The government can take under its wing any issue it deems fit," the man's voice came across the room clearly with authority, "I thank you for handling this matter up until now, but these children are wards of the state until their parents or relatives can declare otherwise. I believe that young lady's father has already taken her back under his care. It's time for you to take your associates and step aside on this matter, the military's overbearing presence in government affairs is not the acceptable norm any longer. Have I made myself clear?"

Roy didn't give the man the pleasure of a verbal answer, instead he simply took a backwards step out of the room. The four lower officers around him waited for a command he was not yet ready to give.

"Very good then," the man rose back to his feet, "Alphonse?" he waited until Al looked back up towards him, "my name is Sebastian Mitchell, when you're discharged from the hospital tomorrow do you have any objections to staying with my wife and I?"

Al examined the man for a moment, wondering why the man had bothered to pose the question since he was in no position to refuse, "If… that's not a bother to anyone."

"Very good then, I'll return tomorrow to pick you up," giving Al a warm grin and a pat on the head, the man turning towards the door and exited swiftly past the five soldiers who saluted him as he left.

Al looked through the open door at the five faces he'd grown accustomed to seeing, and the disapproving look upon the man whom he now knew as Mustang – the military commander his older brother had served under – seemed to be the most dominating of them all. Al caught his gaze once more before the officers retreated down the hall.

Suddenly throwing himself from the bed, Al's bare feet skidded along the floor as he scrambled out the door, "Sir!" swinging into the hallway, his hand griped onto the doorframe so strongly his knuckles turned white.

The five officers stopped and all turned back to him. The expressions of curiosity and wonder as they looked upon him, although diluted over time, still appeared in their eyes. Al found it to be an intimidating sensation.

Standing in the silence, Al searched his mind for something to say that didn't pose any harm, "Can you tell that family I'm sorry I can't stay with them?"

The corner of Havoc's sore mouth curled up in amusement as he popped a cigarette into his teeth. Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Broche turned away with a light smile and continued down the hallway.

"You should tell them that yourself. I'm sure she wouldn't mind a babysitter for her daughter one afternoon," Roy answered with a nonchalant tone as he turned with the remaining officers and walked towards the stairwell, "make sure you water those flowers in your room."

* * *

Ed's tired eyes watched the pendulum sway back and forth as the late night minutes ticked away. If he'd felt the urge to pick his head up off the table in his father's office, he would have done so, but that required more effort than he was willing to give just then. Momentarily glancing at the keys on Hohenheim's desk, Ed wondered if it was simply best to declare this night a loss as well. Motionlessly debating this idea as his eyes grew heavier, his attention was soon taken by the noise he could hear from beyond the office doors.

"Just because there's light on under the door, it doesn't mean anyone is in there!" a male voice argued.

"Why would someone waste electricity like that? Of course he's in there."

Edward's eyebrows rose at the second voice – a woman's voice – he recognized it from somewhere, but couldn't pinpoint it. He ran the short list of young women in his father's classes through his mind trying to put a face to it.

"It's eleven-thirty at night! We can come back in the morning. It's not that important."

"It's important to me, come on. It'll be quick."

"Just leave people in peace this time of night, my God!"

"Fine then, be a downer. Bugger off to bed, you can miss out."

The voice did not miss its cue to exit, "Good night, little girl," the footsteps of the man walking away could be heard.

"Good night, you useless man."

Ed lifted his head from the table and looked to the door, "… the hell?" he muttered as his face twisted in confusion. He wondered if they realized that the whole floor could hear them bickering. Edward continued to listen until the footsteps became inaudible and he waited for the female voice to knock on the door. Obviously, she'd been talking about the office he was in because, as far as Ed knew, all the other professors had gone home for the night. So he waited, poised to get up and open the door, but a knock never came. The ticking of the wall clock began to echo again within the room. Finally Ed got up from his seat, curiosity getting the better of him. Straightening his shirt collar he walked to the door to peek out. Pulling the door open, a unison scream was let out as both Edward and the girl stumbled backwards - Ed had nearly walking right into her as she had been standing far too close to the door.

"Oh my God, you scared me!" the young woman's voice echoed in the empty hallway.

Ed grabbed the barely open door and swung it wide, "What do you think-" stopping in mid-sentence his eyes grew wide, "_you_."

The woman brushed her curling brown hair from her face, "You…"

Ed curled up his nose in confusion, "What the hell are you doing here?"

The woman from the train station days earlier came into clear focus when she stepped up in the door way and put herself nose to nose with Ed, "Is it possible you weren't lying when you said Hohenheim was your father?"

Ed backed up, not liking his personal space being invaded like that, "Of course I wasn't lying!"

"Ohh…" though she'd stood at the door too nervous to knock on it, Ed suddenly became aware that she had no problem trampling all over him as she entered the room, "It's so pretty, just like I thought it would be. Oh! Someday we'll have an office like this too."

Edward spun on his heels to stop her from invading his father's office any further, "Just hang on, I didn't invite you in. What do you think you're doing?"

"I didn't think it would have crossed your mind to be nice enough to invite me in," she said with a huff; folding her arms, "what a shame, it seems professor Hohenheim isn't here."

"Obviously," Ed marched over to her.

The woman dawned a very delightful grin and piped up again, "Will he be in tomorrow?"

"I'm not his secretary," Ed replied flatly, grabbing her at the upper arm, "can you leave? I'm busy."

"Is my presence not good enough for you? My word…" she jerked her arm away from Edwards grasp, "that's no way to treat a lady. You certainly have no idea how to behave like a gentleman."

"Get out," Edward replied flatly and in no mood to play this sort of game.

Finally showing signs of displeasure rather than the presumptuous demeanour, the intruder looked ready to slap him, "Learn to respect your elders and ask nicely. Your father's a very nice man from what I've heard, so what happened to you?"

Before Edward could explode, a voice interjected.

"Mathilde!"

Both Edward and the woman turned to the door at the man's call. Standing in the door was a finely dressed man in brown pants, white shirt and tie, his dark brown hair neatly slicked back, and at least a handful of years older than Ed. The angered expression the newly-appeared man displayed showed hints of embarrassment.

"What the hell is going on? The whole building can hear you! "

'_Oh shit…_' Ed glanced to the side, straightening his shirt.

"I thought you'd left?" she said with the roll of her eyes.

The man did not set foot in the room, instead continued his conversation from outside the open door, "Well I came back upstairs and I find you acting like some spoilt little girl. Were you going to behave like this in front of Professor Hohenheim?"

Giving a dismissing wave of her hand, the exuberant woman brushed off his comments, "Of course not. Don't be stupid," she moved for a quick change of topic, "this is Edward Elric, by the way."

The displeasure suddenly wiped away from the man's face, "Oh, so you're Edward Elric? I've heard of you," finally he stepped into the room, an amused grin creeping across his expression while he reached out a hand for Ed to shake, "I heard you made a few senior graduates look like a bunch of fools last year."

As Edward scoffed at the comment, he could find no polite way to turn down the handshake he was unable to give, "It was their own fault. They dared me to take that placement exam with them, not my fault I got the highest mark."

"Well good for you, because there were some far too inflated egos there," he gave a light laugh at the thought, pulling his hand back slightly puzzled that Ed had not accepted his handshake.

Ed shrugged the comments off and looked between the two, "Your name was Mathilde, right?"

"Yes," she flashed a childish grin for Edward, "but _you _can call me Tilly."

Edward's eyes began to narrow in thought.

"I'm sorry for the rude introductions Mr. Elric," the man gave his head a light shake, "this is my wife, Tilly Hummel. I'm-"

"Oberth?" Edwards's wide-eyed reaction finished the sentence.

A disconcerting expression crossed the man's face at Edward's recognition of his name.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**Author's Notes**

I'm running with the theory that the progress of time on the other side of the Gate is independent and moves faster than the FMA side. When Ed was in London for episode 49 and 50, it was 1916, a year later than the year it was on the FMA side (1915). Time is going to move faster in Ed's part of the story.

Further info on the Elric brother's birthdays: http(colonslashslash)www(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)community(slash)fm_alchemist(slash)962134(dot)html

**Chapter 53 Feedback****  
**  
X3 I'm glad people are liking it!

Yes, I did research for this story. If only Social Studies had been this entertaining. And just to note, everyone I've inserted on Edward's side of the Gate is a real historical somebody.


	4. In Honour of a Memory

**He Who Searches For Himself**

**

* * *

**_"I never expected to find him there, not after what happened. I came to the hospital as a government representative; it was horrible, the carnage left behind after yet another German attack. I happened to pass by the ward of beds whfere Edward lay, I'll never know what caught my attention. I stood at the foot of the bed and simply looked at him; his bangs were stuck to his damp forehead, and his breathing didn't seem right. I knew what happened. The nurse had just changed the bandages, yet there were still places where he was encased in his own dry blood. I wondered how much he'd lost before being brought in, though I never asked. I finally sat down on the stool near the head of the bed; I can't remember how long I sat like that, I think the nurses rotated shifts at least twice. I put my hand on his cheek from time to time, constantly alarmed at the fever he was running. It concerned me more than any of the staff. One of the younger girls was kind enough to leave me with a washbasin of cold water and hand cloth. I'd refold the cloth over on his forehead from time to time and wondered if he'd ever wake up. That's all I could do."_

**Chapter 55 – In Honour of a Memory**

Sitting upon the floor beneath the window of the Prime Minister's guest room, Al's gaze drifted through the room once more. The windbreaker given to him lay in a heap upon blue knit covers of the bed, the night stand next to it held a reading lamp, the oak dresser over by the closet, the curtains hanging around him matched the blue shade of the covers. It felt so empty and stripped of life; so much carpet and wall within the room – there was not enough substance. Al wondered if he and the room could somehow understand each other.

He thought about his sensei once more. What could have happened to her? It had been nearly three full days. The longer he thought about the passage of time, the more it upset him. Izumi seemed indestructible; her wit, intuition, instincts, and ability to use alchemy without a circle would get her out of almost anything. He did not understand what could have happened to her, and refused to accept many of the possibilities he'd heard discussed in the hospital.

Al reached into his pant's pocket. He extracted the delivery receipt from the basket of flowers that once decorated his hospital room. Written in pencil was sender and receiver information, the name and telephone number of both parties. Al looked at the name again; it frightened him. Gracia Hughes was a name he recognized quite clearly – Winry spoke very highly of her. Al wanted to know, to see, to hear, to experience someone, anyone, whom he'd forgotten – and he did not know how to approach it. Furthermore, would anyone get upset if he did seek her out? Ms. Hughes was not part of the military, yet Mustang had ties to her. Looking at the note once more, he wondered what the Brig. General could have told her.

"Alphonse?"

Having not heard the door open, he startled.

"Sorry, I know you're tired," PM Mitchell gave him a grin as he stood peeking into the room, "but did you want to have some lunch? I had some sandwiches made."

Swiftly tucking the receipt into his pocket, Al quickly got to his feet, "Alright."

Following him into the hall, Al's eyes again drifted; the whole building was so clean. He'd been shocked to discover that a family like this did not take on a maid to keep things tidy – yet the entire building was in pristine shape.

"You mentioned earlier about making a phone call?" the Prime Minister asked as they descended the winding staircase towards the kitchen.

Al's attention turned over to the man, "Could I actually…?" the words had slipped out; he felt an anxious shiver run through his skin.

Stepping off the stairs, the man turned back to Al with an encouraging smile, "The phone is free to use if you wish to use it. You don't have to ask." He waited for Al to step off the stairs, "do you remember where it is?"

"Yes, sir," Al wondered if his nervousness was noticeable.

"Do that first then. Quiet your concerns, then we can eat," the PM motioned for Al to get going down the hall.

Hesitantly, Al turned down the hall towards the front doors where the telephone sat upon a table. The closer he got, the more he worried, and his steps slowed. Finally, standing in front of the contraption, he stared at it as if to spite it for making him nervous. With a sharp inhale, Al snatched the receiver into his hand and dialed from memory the number he'd stared at all morning.

Disappointment began to sink into his heart as the phone rang without answer. The longer it went on, the more he thought of hanging up; the ringing began to echo in his head. After the deflating fifteenth ring, Al started to pull the phone away from his ear.

"Hi!"

Fumbling with the receiver in his hands, Al slammed it back to his ear, "Hello?"

"Hi!" the squeaky little voice greeted him again.

"Um… is your mom home?" Al made a perplexed face, not expecting to be holding a conversation with a little girl.

"Mummy's hanging flowers!" came the response.

The sugar voice made him giggle, Al spoke to her again, "Can I talk to your Mummy?"

"Yep! Okay."

Al heard the receiver clunk down upon what sounded like the echoing of tile flooring as the voice calling out 'Mummy' faded with the distance. The little voice distracted Al from his concerns as he tried to imagine what someone who sounded like that could look like.

"Hello?"

The voice froze Al; he did not respond right away having instantly forgotten anything he'd wanted to say. As the voice once again asked 'hello?', the fear of her hanging up finally struck him, "Hello…"

"Good afternoon. May I ask who's calling?"

Al was taken aback by the familiar tone. Though the voice bore no resemblance, the prose the voice had wrapped him up in a mother's warmth.

"Um, Alphonse… Curtis, ma'am."

There was no hesitation, no pause, no hint of doubt, no concern to be found within the voice, and something about that made the crushing fear crumble away.

"Oh! Alphonse. I'd heard you were feeling better. Thank you so much for calling me."

* * *

"Sorry, not interested in it."

Edward's face fell sharply, never having expected to hear that from him, "You can't be serious?"

Hermann Oberth took the bottle of Rheingau Riesling from the table and topped up Edward's class once again, "Dead serious."

His chin resting in his hand, Edward stared utterly confused at his drinking partner, "Why not?" the conversation paused as he took a sip from his glass, "I thought the Goddard report was something you were looking for."

Taking the stem of the wineglass between his fingers, Oberth slouched back in the couch. He put one of his feet up on the table and gazed lazily around the lounge. The pale yellow lights flickered around them as someone's cigar smoke drifted by, "Right now, if I even acknowledge ever seeing that envelope, all my credibility is shot out the window. I can see every scientist in Europe and abroad accusing me of stealing that information; information I didn't even realize was in this country until twenty minutes ago."

Frowning, Ed scratched his head feverishly, "Where'd I get the idea you wanted it?"

Oberth gave a laugh at that, "I do want it, this is simply bad timing," the man's evening of drinking gave exuberance to his speech, "thanks for making me feel proud that I had a chance to 'cheat', and turned it down. I'm going to be a better man when all is said and done." He took a sharp sip of the wine, "When my documents are in print, then I'll request a copy from Goddard himself. If I suddenly have your copy, the American's will jump on the Anti-German bandwagon and I'd be labeled a fraud."

Edward fell back into the softness of the couch and tossed his lagging gaze to the ceiling, "Guess it goes back in the desk."

"No one knows you have that thing, right?" Oberth raised an eyebrow at Edward.

Holding his wineglass in similar fashion, Ed swirled the drink within around, "Just my dad." It sounded so simple as he said it.

"Great," Oberth dropped his foot from the table's edge, "hide it, burry it, loose it in your room… don't burn it, it's good stuff… but make it disappear. If you want to have anything to do with me, I want nothing to do with _THAT_," he pointed a sharp finger at the envelope on the table between them.

Ed gave a sideways grin, "Yeah, fine, I'll do something with it."

"Good man," sitting up again, Oberth placed the wine glass back down on the coffee table, "now you have to tell me. What the hell did you do to yourself?"

Edward raised an eyebrow in confusion, "Huh?"

Oberth shot him a mocking glare, "You said you weren't a soldier, so what the hell did you do to loose your arm and leg."

"Oh that" Ed raised his mechanical arm, "I tried to resurrect my mom with alchemy, the procedure backfired, and I lost my arm and leg," he glanced over to Oberth for a reaction; Edward's expression dawning a sly look to hide any remorse.

A long pause ensued as Oberth shot a crooked stare in Edward's direction, "if I had a gun, I'd shoot you between the eyes for that." Oberth reached out and threw a coaster at him as he began to laugh.

Blocking it with the metal arm, Ed just shook his head, "I was in London… it's been pretty much 5 years now," his expression sobered as he spoke, "I can't remember too much, but there was an air raid… and I didn't exactly come out unscathed." That was the story, he told it to everyone.

"That explains why your German is off sometimes; you're English," Oberth took another sip from his wine glass, "and then you and your dad concocted those crazy devices?"

Ed gave an affirmative nod, "Yeah, he actually used some political excuse to come out here after the Versailles treaty. We decided to stay after meeting a medical graduate. He gave us some initial help with the design for the arm. The guy laughed when I said I was going to lift it on my own. Something about it would be too difficult to get the arm to read the contractions of the flexors and extenders properly," he took another sip from his glass.

Existing within the chatter of the post-midnight lounge, Oberth continued to swirl his glass of crystal clear wine. Edward finished the last drop and placed the glass back upon the table. Forgetting his wine etiquette, Oberth gulped back what was left of his drink and put his glass down next to Edward's.

"That's just incredible," Oberth once again filled their glasses.

Ed sank into the chair with a groan, "You're going to make me sick…"

"You won't get sick. You don't drink often enough for your body to know what to do with this. Besides," Oberth picked up his glass once again and held it in the air, "you'll sleep like a rock when you pass out."

Following the man's lead, Edward retook his glass and sunk back into the couch. He propped a foot up on the coffee table between them, "I'll wake up and be sick after."

Oberth smirked as he swirled his drink, "Did you drink any milk earlier today?"

Tipping his head down from the 'sip' he just took, the look in Edward's eyes seemed to question the man's sanity, "No."

"Good, you won't get sick," Oberth gave him a wink for his participation.

* * *

"Alphonse?"

He startled suddenly, turning to look at the man siftting next to him within the back of the car.

"This is the correct address, is it not?" the Prime Minister looked carefully at Al, a hint of concern crossed his mind while they remained sitting in the automobile.

"It is…" Al's reply came slowly as he eyed the two-story house within the urban district of Amestris. His mind's eye tried to imagine memories of things that could have taken place here.

Stepping out of the car, P.M. Mitchell walked a path around the vehicle. With the wave of a hand instructed his driver to stop the engine. He popped the door open on Alphonse's side for him. Peeking inside the car, he gave Al a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "You shouldn't be shy. She's a family friend after all?"

Al put his feet down into the dusty road and straightened up, "I haven't seen her since I was really little though. She probably doesn't remember what I look… like…" his voice trailed off at the sounding of a high pitched call.

"You came!" frizzy blonde pigtails bounced at the side of a pudgy round face and a set of little fingers flicked the latch on the gate and it swung wide open.

"Elysia!"

Al suddenly became distracted by the mother's voice over the approaching little girl and he looked up with enough time to see the young mother step out into the afternoon sunlight.

"I told you not to leave the yard without telling me…"

It was as if the words never existed, the little imp commanded Al's attention, "HI!"

Al knelt down in front of the little girl, "Hi Elysia…" he chewed his lower lip slightly, wondering what to say to her next. His heart raced as he spoke to this little child, "Didn't your mom say that you should be inside the yard?"

With a quick snap of motion, she grabbed Alphonse's right hand and gave him a tug, "You need to come into the yard too." Her grin marched ear to ear; Al couldn't help but giggle as he let her drag him along the red brick path back into the yard. Mitchell followed behind, trying to keep his amusement at the situation under some restraint.

Half bent over at Elysia's sudden attachment to him, Al's eyes looked up to Gracia as she stood perfectly composed upon her porch. Al felt a faint rose colour brush across his cheeks as he wished to return the smile she bestowed upon him.

"Alphonse," the lack of imperfections in her voice made his skin tingle again, "you've changed so much, I'm so glad you could come." Gracia stepped right into the game. Moving from the perch atop her castle stairs, she came up beside her daughter and Al. Gracia reached a warm arm around Alphonse's back and gave him a welcoming hug. The warmth he felt from her seemed all encompassing; and had left him without a word to say. Her open expression never dissipated from one person to the next; she straightened herself and gave a light bow of her head, "Prime Minister Mitchell, thank you for taking the time…"

"Sebastian is fine, Ms. Hughes. Please don't worry about the formality," he shook his head in dismissal.

Gracia brought her hand up, "Oh no, I couldn't-"

"Mummy!" Elysia piped up into the conversation, tugging on her mother's skirt, "can we have the tea now? Can I serve tea now?"

Gracia's smile broadened slightly as she tried to contain her amusement, "I'm sorry everyone, Elysia's been waiting all afternoon to serve tea. Please come inside and sit down," her eyes glanced down to Alphonse, "and I want to hear how you've been coping in Amestris thus far."

"Yay!" In an instant, her hands released Alphonse from her clutches and she bounded up the stairs into the house. All Al could do was blink in amazement at her sudden absence.

Gracia put a hand to the side of her own head, "At least she had a nap earlier."

"She's beautiful, Ms. Hughes," Mitchell stepped up next to Alphonse as the youngest Elric straightened himself.

"Thank you," her eyes drifted down to Al, "I've rearranged the house since you last came, but I'm sure if you went inside you could find your way to the living room; go on ahead," she gave Al a light pat of encouragement on his back, "both of you must come in and put your feet up for the afternoon."

With a light push, P.M. Mitchell gave the stalled boy his starting steps; Al staggered forward and up the few steps. He continued to digest his surroundings. Taking his shoes off at the door, Al momentarily glanced back before disappearing into the house.

"I don't think he remembers you too well," Mitchell's attention focused on Gracia.

"No, it seems not. But it's been over five years since I last saw him; children that age don't often remember a person they'd only met a few times," Gracia clasped her hands in front of herself, "won't you come inside?"

With the slight bow of his head, Mitchell stepped with Gracia towards her front door, "I hope you're not upset that I've insisted to have him remain with us," his eyes glanced back to her as he placed his shoes upon the rubber mat within the hallway.

Sliding her feet into a pair of slippers, Gracia shook her head, "No, it's safer for him to remain with you until Izumi is found. I certainly hope that isn't too long, it's disconcerting."

"Very much so," as he placed the hanger with his coat back into the closet, Mitchell glanced down the hallway, "which room did those two disappear into?"

"Second one on your right, go ahead," turning back to shut the door as the country's most important man entered her house; Gracia glanced out the door past the walls of her yard. The concern and nervousness deep within her fell upon the soft expression. Her eyes traveled slowly along the main street in front of the house; finally stepping back, she quietly pushed the door shut.

* * *

Placing his feet at the edge of the oversized and entirely dysfunctional transmutation circle etched into the cement, Edward stood looking up into the dome of what was once part of a different religion. There was little light beyond the hefty candles that lit the room, but he could still make out the mold that grew in out of some of the higher rock walling. The voices of men echoed around him; he figured they must be use to the musty old water smell that existed here. After straightening the black robe draped over his shoulders, Ed folded his arms and simply looked up into the archways of pale moonlight; he waited.

"Edward."

He turned at the call of his name, "…Professor Haushofer."

The Director of the Munich Institute of Geopolitics, Karl Haushofer, placed his hand upon Edward's shoulder, "Your father told me to expect to see you tonight, I'm glad you made it."

"I was told tonight was something everyone must attend," his voice so out of character from what the rest of the world was accustom to hearing; devoid of so much life. Since it began to expand, he found that the best way to deal with the Thule Society was to simply become cold for the evening. He'd erect an emotionless wall around himself and try to survive the night.

These people gave him a feeling like nothing he could relate to. Back home, though there was war, there was still the essence of compassion between mankind as a whole; even a soldier who killed others under orders still suffered from his conscience. Yet, he could sit in that smoky lounge and listen to the conversations of men brag about how many French soldiers they once killed. He was disgusted; they thought it some sort of game. Edward could sit in this room with some of the brightest men, professors and philosophers and hear them discuss how many Jewish men needed to be killed; as if by murdering someone they didn't know it made everyone better off. He did not understand the type of deep-rooted hatred and complete disrespect for life that spawned from religious beliefs and historical background. Alchemists did not care for religion; they concerned themselves with understanding life – the first clause in alchemy was 'understanding'. The understanding of the world was in reverse here.

And he did understand, to some extent, the suffering that lead to the extreme ways of thinking he found himself floating around in. Since he'd arrived in Germany he'd done nothing but witness the dismantling of the society. Though, having lived in London, he could see the other side of the coin – still, he did not believe that punishment of Germany at the hands of the Entente was entirely warranted. The German government was blamed for being submissive to the rest of the world; this country became the plaything of the world's wrath. From the country's pain, poverty and sense of loss, he and his father watched a new breed of mankind rise from the ruins; the kind that sought after redemption through extermination. The people turned their misery and aggression against the government, the world, and ultimately an ethnicity of the people within it - employed by it, surrounding it, supporting it, criticizing it, and quite often having nothing to do with it. A thousand-man scapegoat had been created. Being unable to comprehend what could ultimately be gained from behaving this way, the younger Elric decided it seemed safer to believe in nothing.

From all his observations, Edward developed an increasing awareness of the reasons alchemy did not function beyond the Gate; it would be so easy to create the Philosopher's Stone, these civilizations would wipe each other out.

Haushofer, who carried a warm father's aura, smiled to Edward, "Your father, Albrecht, Dietrich and myself are over there, you're welcome to join us."

Having been told to never refuse a social offering in the presence of these men, Edward nodded and followed the man over towards the gathering.

"Edward!" Albrecht's voice rang out.

He nearly gave into the temptation to roll his eyes, "Hey, Hoffie."

"Hoffie?" The rounder gentleman standing next to Hohenheim laughed, "I should use that some day for you."

As the young Haushofer pleaded for that to never happen, Edward's eyes examined the balding middle-aged man next to his father. As the man's belly laughed heartily at Albrecht once more; without notice, the noise of the few men around him silenced abruptly.

"I don't think we've been formally introduced."

Edward wondered if anyone could see the look of displeasure that manifested itself behind his eyes, "My apologies." Though he'd been unwilling to shake Oberth's hand a few nights ago, he knew Dietrich Eckart was aware of his arm; the two shook hands.

"Young man, every time I see you, I think you look like your father," the outspoken Eckart grabbed Edward by his chin with a playful voice, "can't you smile boy?"

"Don't mind him, he's hung over," Hohenheim piped up with a grin; somewhere deep in the back of his mind he wondered if that would be Edward's saving grace today.

"HEY!" Edward's voice sounded sharply, still a tad bit embarrassed. He'd slept until 3 that afternoon; his father had spent most of the later part of the day feeding him coffee & a few crackers. The elder Elric had taken a liking to teasing his displeased son about it all afternoon; having found him passed out at the front door, his keys in the doorknob.

Edward flinched as Eckart gave his cheek a playful slap, "Ah, I hope you had fun," the man with a hearty disposition grinned form ear to ear, "next time you go out, drink something for me. I can't drink enough to regret it anymore."

Edward's eyes frowned at the circle of men around him who laughed once more.

As had happened moments earlier, the subject matter changed in the blink of an eye. Though nothing was said immediately, Edward instantly felt the chill Eckart's gaze gave off; the man could make the walls quiver, "That boy is nearly a half hour late. People are getting impatient."

"He said he was doing something special for the announcements tonight," Albrecht gave a slight nod of his head, remembering the filtered information he had been given.

"I know what Hess is up to, Adolf told me. I just wish the boy wouldn't keep us waiting so long; he might not get to host another night if he makes the wrong people upset," Eckart slowly turned his narrowed gaze upon the rest of the congregation socializing in the candle light.

Haushofer glanced over to Hohenheim who gave his usual drinking companion a light shrug.

"He's your student," Hohenheim smirked.

Haushofer rolled his eyes at the statement, "I suppose I'll have to fail him next time for making us look bad."

Grinning at the reply, Hohenheim glanced over to Edward; much to his chagrin he caught the 'are we done yet!' expression woven into his son's face. Trying to dismiss the childish behaviour Hohenheim began to re-enter the conversation. The emerging echo of female voices filtered into the room; Hohenheim hadn't been able to speak a word before the room fell into a perplexed hush. The main doors to the room crept open slowly while the charismatic voice of Rudolf Hess rang out within the walls, "My apologies gentlemen for my tardiness, I was on a journey." The man remained engulfed within the darkness of the doorway; a light whiff of smoke filled the room from the candles that had blown out at the door's opening.

Edward's eyes trained upon the entrance way, he could barely make out the figures attached to the sounds he was hearing. The faint cries he'd heard moments before had been silenced. Edward took a curious few steps forward to attain a better view of the situation. He stopped as he felt Eckart's hand land firmly upon the metal covering his right shoulder. Edward's attention cautiously drifted from Hess's voice; he gazed up into the unforgiving eyes of Dietrich Eckart. The alarm that sounded within his mind rang violently as he watched the corner of the man's lips curl.

"Make sure you pay attention, this is the main event."

* * *

"And this is what my Mummy bought me for my birthday!" Elysia draped her arms over the handle bars of the pink little bicycle, the tinsel talons fluttered in the light breeze, "Mummy says that I can take the training wheels off when my feet touch the ground," hopping up onto the seat, Elysia pointed her feet within the tiny shoes as hard as she could; her tip toes barely missed skimming the shot cut grass.

Al sat out in the backyard grass; he laughed at all the effort she was putting into it, "Don't worry! You have lots of time to grow up, you'll get there eventually." He glanced back around the yard again; his eyes marveled at the time and effort Gracia must have put into the yard. The area had a luscious perfume smell; many of the flowers had already bloomed. Crossing his legs upon the grass, Al leaned back upon his elbows and soaked up what was left of the afternoon's sun. Elysia wiggled herself off the bicycle and toddled her way back over, plunking herself down in his lap. With Alphonse's wide eyed gaze looking at her; the little girl patted his kneecap with the palms of her hands as she stared up at the clouds.

With a widening grin and hints of confusion floating around his head, Al reached over and flicked one of her pigtails, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Nothing," Elysia gave a vigorous shake to her head before turning her wide grin upon him, "nothing!"

Al found himself starting to laugh at her; there seemed nothing more contagious than the child's smile.

At the living room window, sheer white curtains draping across the frames, Gracia looked out into the yard; her houseguest, Sebastian Mitchell, sat at the dinette sipping the strawberry tea Elysia insisted on having.

"I have to admit, I was apprehensions about coming out here earlier. Alphonse wasn't been feeling good; he was quiet all morning," Mitchell placed his teacup down upon the table, "the little lady seems to have cheered him right up."

"He has some dark scabs on his cheek," Gracia put her fingertips upon her cheek, "they've always been brave boys…"

"Pardon?"

Gracia startled, her fingers flustering slightly before she clasped them in front of herself, "Nothing, just that boys are always getting themselves into situations; getting roughed up."

Mitchell stood up from the table and walked over to the window, "I can vouch for that," a smirk crossed his face, "even so, there's something nice about daughters. My wife can't have children, so we were looking into adopting another girl. Originally we wanted an older daughter, but we fell in love with the baby we have now. The last month or so my wife's been dealing with a gentleman in regards to a seven-year-old girl, possibly eight, I can't remember off hand. I haven't had much to do with it, she insisted on looking after it herself; she thought I wouldn't have time in my schedule to look after a bit extra paperwork," he gave a light laugh, "I wish she wouldn't worry so much about me and my job."

"I'm certain she means well," Gracia reached up and pushed the fine drapery aside to let the sunlight filter into the room, "I heard she's been quite sick on and off… I hope everything's been going well for her lately."

The man's expression fell and he gave the back of his neck a scratch, "It's an ugly disease, whatever it is. She's had it for a while; medicine helps sometimes but some days she doesn't do so well. It ate the flesh off her left forearm before I met her; it was amputated at the elbow. Some days the doctors run the idea of amputating her leg in order to relieve the pain down there; she wants nothing to do with that. She's convinced she can recover from it; I think so too, she's a strong woman."

Gracia turned away and began to clean the biscuit plates and teacups from the table, "I hope everything works out for you two."

"Thank… you…" his voice trailed off in thought.

Gracia placed the dished down at her sink and glanced back at the man as he folded his arms, "Is something wrong?"

"Very interesting," he turned to look back at Gracia, "we should go outside."

Upon the cement path within the yard, Al had helped himself to Elysia's chalk. He carefully finished a simple circle upon the ground, "There, that's good."

Elysia's eyes widened; her hands gripped around a bundle of flowers, "What's that!"

"It's called a Transmutation Circle. It's a charm that makes wishes come true," upon his hands and knees Al glanced up with a warm smile for the amazed little girl, "put your flowers in the middle of it."

"Okay!" with a flash of excitement, Elysia scattered her bouquet over the circle.

Flicking the stem of a lingering flower into the confines of the circle, without missing a beat he put his hands at the outer ring of the circle. At the sudden glow the activated circle gave off, Elysia's eyes widened as a high-pitched squeal came from her. When all was said and done, Al picked the bouquet crown off the ground and placed it upon Elysia's head.

"I crown you Princess!"

Her hands clapped together with delight, she ran in her mother's direction as the back door opened, "Mummy look! Lookit what Al made for me!"

As Gracia entertained her daughter's delight, Mitchell stepped past them. Placing his hands on his hips the man gave a grin to Alphonse, "I didn't know you studied alchemy?"

Slightly embarrassed, Al rubbed the back of his head, "I studied it somewhat, read some books… my mother and I were headed some where to see if we could learn more."

Mitchell placed a hand upon Al's shoulder, "When we go back to my house, I'll show you my library. My wife and I have amassed quite the collection of alchemy books; they're yours to look through at your leisure."

"Really," Al's attention was heightened by the prospect; he gave the man the most delighted expression he'd entertained anyone with today, "thank you so much. I didn't know you knew alchemy."

"Oh when I was younger I was far better at it. I grew up and became better at politics than I could ever get at alchemy," Mitchell turned his attention down suddenly as Elysia's little hands had a grip on the end of the suit jacket he wore.

"You can make these too!" her eyes wide with amazement.

Mitchell knelt down to face the little girl eye to eye, "I'm sure I could if I tired hard enough. Did you want me to make you something too?"

"Elysia, don't inconvenience the gentleman," the punishing tone of a mother's 'don't do that' voice accidentally grabbed Al's attention as well. He smirked to himself at the mistake.

"It's fine Ms. Hughes. I don't mind, I'll make your daughter something before we leave," he put his hand upon Elysia's head and pinched her cheek with the other, "how about I make you something after I've had a good meal to eat. I'll feel a whole lot better then."

The little girl's smile ran ear-to-ear, "Okay!"

* * *

"Here, bran muffins are good for you."

Edward looked up from the pages his eyes scanned over, "Thanks."

Tilly crouched down in front of the table he sat at. She folded her arms at the edge and rested her head there, "Didn't you even eat dinner yesterday?"

Popping the muffin in a top & bottom half, Edward bit into the bottom, "I didn't eat anything yesterday, I didn't feel good."

"And you haven't had a wink of sleep since then!" With that, Tilly startled Edward by standing up abruptly, "Hermann! I told you that you made him sick."

Oberth glanced over to his noisy wife; the disinterest in her comment was quite apparent.

"No, no, that's not what I meant…" Edward gave a nervous frown as he watched her huff his statement away. He turned back and looked at the convoluted works laid out before him. He'd hoped that going to see Oberth would help him understand Goddard's theories better, but it wasn't panning out that way. With what he could understand, he wished he could simply clap his hands and play with it. He modified the idea of aircraft propulsion within his mind; he could create an alchemical reaction of the air around himself and now understood how he could disrupt the airflow of the rest of the room with so much force that it would lift the ceiling off an enclosed building. He could also see how his alchemy could make this task of launching a rocket into space so easy to accomplish. Edward could send it to the moon if he had the ability here to do so. So many different aspects of science had evolved on this end.

He gave a wonder to what Al's expression would be if he had some simple rocket and sent it to the moon at the clap of his hands; it made him laugh.

"What's so funny?" Tilly turned sharply to face him, her playful frown looking down upon him.

"Nothing," Ed shook his head; she'd never understand. Again he looked back at the notes. Though there was so much potential with the information, so much of it was simply theories; theories that could take decades to implement, master, fund, finish. He'd be in his 50's by the time he got anywhere. As if the black hole burned into his heart from the night before didn't hurt enough, the thought of putting up with 30 more years of tinkering, testing, trying, theorizing simply did not sit well in any respect. He did not want to spend his life here. His resolve to return home had fortified, and it kept him up all night as he studied Oberth's notes within the dormitory lounge. There had to be some way he could apply this knowledge. Could breaking the sound or light barrier help him? The last thing he wanted to do was ask Einstein. Could the fuel be used to propel him forward rather than launch him upward? The hope that this information could help him kept becoming more dilute every time he thought of a new potential application.

His hand slammed down on the desktop; his hand crumpled up the bits of notes he'd written up and he threw the piece of paper across the room, "This is impossible!"

Oberth lifted himself from his work and swung another chair around next to Edward who had his face in his hands; a dark cloud over his head. "What are you stuck on?" Oberth tried to organize the mess of papers Ed had before himself.

"Nothing in particular," Ed grumbled as he moved his coffee cup aside, "it's just… so much theory, not much practical work."

Oberth raised an eyebrow at his younger associate, "Well… yeah, it is. Methodologies, theories, terminologies. I need to prove my case before anyone will give me funding. Do you have any idea how much money it would cost to get this stuff assembled let alone tested?" he gave Edward a swat upside the head, "don't be so impatient, we have a ton of years left ahead of us. It'll be gratifying when it's said and done with."

The miserable look re-crossed Edward's face, "If only I could transmute something into a rocket ship…" from the back of the room, he was suddenly pegged in the face with his trashed piece of paper.

"Alchemy is like witchcraft you idiot," Tilly folded her arms as she came back to his desk, "it's all fiction."

Oberth took off his reading glasses and onto Edward's desk, "Radioactivity has something to do with alchemy. Something about spontaneous transmutations… I heard about it from someone chemistry student a while back."

Ed's unimpressed expression scoffed at the whole scenario, "Alchemy as it should be, is nothing like what's attainable. You need understanding, decomposition and reconstruction. Radioactivity skips the understanding and heads straight to decomposition and attempts reconstruction; that's why it's spontaneous and dangerous. Alchemical understanding is way beyond the psyche of anyone here."

Oberth raised an eyebrow while Tilly reached over the desk and bopped him again with the adventurous piece of crumpled paper, "You're going to be hunted down by bands of gypsies and be burnt at the steak."

Edward laughed at that; his arm reached out and he snagged up the paper ball before he could get hit with it again, "It's not possible anyways, so what does it matter?"

"That's right," Oberth stood up and put himself back down at the desk adjacent to Edward, "what matters right now is that we make sure my theories are clean and flaw free."

Edward looked over to the senior man in the room, "So, what happens if I want to fly into space right now?"

Without lifting his head from his work, Oberth smirked as he jotted on his papers, "You go to bed and dream about doing so. I'd re-evaluate your mental state after that if you still thought it somehow possible in the next 5 years."

"Or you could stop drinking coffee, that'd bring you down to earth," amidst Edward's swatting hand, Tilly removed the coffee cup from his desk.

* * *

Al turned in his seat as he watched Elysia lead Mr. Mitchell out into the back yard once more; her squeaky little voice bouncing off all the walls. He glanced over his shoulder to examine the scene through the drapery, but Gracia stole his attention. He watched as she organized the left over food into bowls and plates; everything seemed to have a place and she marked her actions with precision. 'Were all mom's able to do that?' Al wondered. He fidgeted in his seat uneasily. Finally with the clench of his fists, he stood up and walked over to the sink.

"I can help," his wide-eyed nerves looked up at her.

Gracia glanced over to Al; an unintentional expression of surprise crossed her eyes. He felt a tingle of embarrassment run down his spine; he quickly glanced away. Shaking the feeling away, Gracia's demeanor returned; she took the dishcloth sitting on the counter and placed it in front of Al.

"Only if you want."

From the corner of his sheepish eye Al looked back up at her, his hand taking up the damp cloth, "I don't mind."

Letting the water run luke warm as he wiped off the dishes; Al followed the instructions Gracia pointed out on where each cup, dish, bowl and utensil went in her cupboards. Al found that she was inclined to ask him 'can you reach that?' which he received many apologies for; whenever Elysia helped there was so much she was too tiny for. Reaching back into the running water for more utensils, Al flinched and quickly took a few steps back; with a sour face, he popped his finger into his mouth.

Drying her hands quickly, Gracia turned around to Al. As she bent over, her hand popped his finger from his mouth, "Don't put it in your mouth if you cut it." Turning Al's hand over, she looked at where his finger had been slit by the knife. Taking a napkin from the table, she wrapped his finger in it, "that's deep. You have enough cuts and scrapes as it is. Let's go upstairs, I'll get a bandage for it."

Not given an opportunity to protest, Al was hand held up the stairs; he no longer concerned himself with the skiff of blush that ran across his cheeks. He remained standing in the hallway while Gracia fished around in the cabinet for a bandage wrap. Al turned himself around slowly, his curious eyes examining the upstairs floor. He gazed through the railing back downstairs; the early evening light left the hallway with an orange tint. His eyes shifted down the hall; taking a step back, Al could see inside Elysia's room. The light patterns scattered on the toy-littered floor came from glass window ornaments that hung in her window. He turned his attention down to the other end of the hall, a study room. He took a half step aside attempting to steal a peek. His eye caught the navy military cap sitting upon the desk.

"This will have to do. Elysia must have run off with my box of band aids again," Gracia tucked her olive skirt beneath her knees as she knelt down before Al. Tearing a tissue in half, she folded it over twice before placing it on the soft tip of his index left finger. From the roll of bandage gauze, she snipped off a strip and wrapped it around the end of his finger – tucking the end away so it would not come loose.

"How's that?"

Al marveled at his finger, "Thank you," his quiet voice came out as his eyes curiously darted back down the hall for a moment.

Catching his glance, Gracia followed his momentary line of sight down the hall, "Did you want to have a look?"

Though he should have insisted 'no', the stronger curiosity insisted 'yes' – Al stood silent and indecisive. Gracia rose to her feet and returned the items to their place in the washroom cabinet. Once again in the hall, she took up Al's hand and led him down the hallway. Stepping into the room, Gracia walked silently across the hardwood floor; brushing the dress smooth beneath her, she sat down at the desk. Al stood next to her, his hands holding onto the top knob of the chair leg; his eyes scanning the room. The study desk graced the center wall of the room; behind them next to the window was a half stuffed bookcase. Al's eyes caught the coat rack in the corner, a slightly dusty black jacket draped over whatever items hung from the highest notch. His attention turned back to Gracia as the hat he'd eyed earlier landed upon his head; the tips of her fingers holding the brim. With a faint smile she removed it from his head and placed it perfectly back down where it rested before.

Al's eyes scanned the desk; scanned the photographs on the desk. His eyes focused on the family photo that centered everything. He eyed the tall grinning man that accompanied Gracia and Elysia.

"His name was Maes. He was my husband," Gracia's somber words filled the room, "there's a lot about him I miss… it's been just over a year now since he passed away."

Al's eyes trained on the picture, trying to extract the personality he could see within the image, and put it to the personality Winry had told him about.

"He died doing his job. It's a shame so many of the things he wanted to see happen in his lifetime probably will never occur," Gracia glanced over to the photograph of her husband and Mustang. Al's eyes followed hers, and then widened as he recognized the face of the man he'd seen within the hospital.

"He loved to have photographs of everything," at that, Gracia stood up from the seat. As she walked over to the bookcase, Al's eyes shifted to the third picture on the desk; he again was able to associate a few of the faces from the group photo with people he'd seen in the hospital.

"I think this is it," Gracia slid an album out from the bookcase and sat back down in the chair. Al turned his head a little bit to peer closer at the photographs; Gracia opened the album to the middle page.

"These were taken just after Elysia was born," Gracia slowly ran her finger over the four image spread of her late husband and newborn daughter. The face that grinned so foolishly at Al within the images could only make him smile.

"He seems like fun," Al replied quietly as he leaned against the side of the chair.

"He was," Gracia's left fingers slipped into a few pages back, and she flipped the album into the past, "and these were taken at your brother's birthday party."

From the corner of her eye, Gracia looked up to Al. She wasn't sure if his expression was that of fear, or that of wonder; perhaps a combination of them both. But she recognized the underlying meaning to the expression upon his face; Gracia saw a similar look in her daughter's eyes every time a new story of the child's father found it's way to her.

Al's dilated eyes stared into the four images upon that page; he knew instantly which one was him, but he felt no association to it. It looked nothing like him; it was so bizarre. Yet, the images were so real, so full of life; he wished he could touch them and experience what went on. He looked into the eyes of his older brother; a year older than he last remembered, his hair pulled back, braided… Al wondered when he got that unfamiliar jacket.

Before Al's eyes lay something he could finally touch about this missing world.

"I remember Edward mentioned that now he'd get to be a year older than you again; because now he would be twelve and you'd still be eleven," the back of Gracia's hand came to rest upon Al's cheek, "and today when you came into my house once more, you were still eleven."

With the chair as a crutch, Al slowly came to stand on his knees next to the seated Gracia, his eyes never glancing away from the album. He tried to recreate stories in his mind of what could be going on, what could have been said, what they were laughing at, who that little girl was with them…

"Al," Gracia's 'Mother's Voice' asked for his attention and slowly received it. The voice never elevated, never coarsened; it simply stroked it's way through him, "do you enjoy living in a story? The story of this 'Mother', the story you have made for you, and with me? The story you'll create of these pictures?" Gracia shut the album slowly within her hands and placed it upon the desk. Al slumped off his knees and sat upon the ground, his distant gaze traced the lines within the hardwood floor. Gracia slid off the chair and sat down beside him. Her hand gave his downy soft hair a brush out of his face as the silence lingered on; the hue within the room had become saturated in orange from the evening light. Their shadows stretched long across the room.

Though he finally tried, Gracia did not let Al curl up into his little world of seclusion. Taking him by the wrist, she got to her feet, pulling him up as well. Re-opening the photo album, Gracia slipped one of the photos out from within and wrapped it in an envelope taken from the desk drawer.

"When you feel you can, I want you to come back here and tell me the other story of you. Tell me the story of today's eleven-year-old Alphonse Elric and not the other Curtis boy. In return, I'll tell you the story of this picture, and anything from any other picture you want to know about. I don't think you want to disservice any of their memories," bending down, Gracia placed the wrapped photograph in Al's hands, "Maes said you boys believed in 'Equivalent Trade'. Does this qualify?"

* * *

The gentle glass upon glass sound that was made when Hohenheim placed his drink down in the saucer was not loud enough to even echo within the room. The fireplace gave a light crackling to make up for it. The elder Elric glanced over his shoulder, unable to relieve the stiffness within his body. Re-buttoning the top of his dress shirt, Hohenheim looked to the double door entrance of this place of solitude; had he just heard the sound of the front door closing? The deep chimes of the pendulum clock reminded him that it was now two in the morning. The stumbling of feet that echoed this late at night within the hallway confirmed his suspicions.

Pushing away from his resting place, Hohenheim slowly stepped out of the room, "… Edward?" even his gentle questioning voice bore a profound strength.

Edward did not answer as he hung up his coat at the end of the hallway.

"Where have you been?" Hohenheim wondered if he had the right to be angry with his son for this stunt. He recognized the reasons behind Edwards's deliberate ignorance of his voice and presence; regardless, the continued silence grew increasingly frustrating.

"Edward." His voice grew demanding and Hohenheim chose to approach.

Having already kicked off his shoes, Edward took a swift path in an opposite direction within the house; he shoved his hands into his pocket.

His steps suddenly a slightly bit faster, Hohenheim reached out and grabbed Edward under the arm, "EDWARD."

Ed jerked his arm up and swung a backhanded fist of his good left arm at his father who was able to back out of the way. "Screw off!" his cold voice echoed as he turned to walk away from him once more.

Hohenheim stood in the middle of the hall, allowing him to walk away. He could not hide the disheartened feeling, nor the feeling of guild he placed upon himself when Edward had not returned home the night before. He'd hoped his son's disappearance for a day and a half would have given him time to cool down.

The event the Thule Society had held the days before had been hosted by one of his closest associates star pupils, Rudolf Hess. Edward had spoken to him a few times, he'd been impressed by the man's desire to help change what the world had done to Germany. He liked a man who was willing to stand on a platform with his own two feet; even at that, there was still much he distrusted about Hess. He'd chosen to turn a blind eye to many things about so many people here, especially the general distrust of everyone to everyone else; you could not remain sane if you concerned yourself with distrust.

And then Hess shattered whatever container Ed protected himself from society with; standing before the congregation the man started the evening by executing Rathenau's young Jewish secretary and her two children as they begged for their lives, "God does not pity you," his cruel voice rang out. The platform Hess and his closest comrades stood upon was comprised of dead bodies.

And Edward stood there as everyone gave approval of his actions.  
He stood there as everyone agreed what had to be removed from society in order for German society to prosper.  
He stood there as everyone applauded the assassination of Matthias Erzberger over a week ago.  
He stood there as everyone seemed to believe that what they wanted to accomplish within society was right.  
He stood there and listened, to everyone, preach at the rise of an empire through the exploitation and extermination of another.

He stood there and realized he could do nothing to change this.

Hohenheim did not let Edward turn away. He'd placed his hand at the back of his son's neck and held him in place. Edward would glace up to his father from time to time, wondering if there was any remorse behind his expression.

Most appalling for Edward was that Hess had acted with the advice of another, someone higher than the man himself who pulled the strings of the people within. Hess asked the congregation, who were all members of the NSDAP as well, for their support as they pushed for this man to become the next Fuhrer. The room applauded.

The speech given last April suddenly had additions to its agenda… and visual aid.

Whatever darkness brewing within Edward's consciousness fed off his disgust for the evening, for the people he was with, for so much of society as a whole. He could see bits and pieces of the traits he hated most in so many people throughout any given day; suddenly it was all in a room for him to watch with his father.

And now, Hohenheim stood behind his son again, as Edward sat silently upon the back porch of the house. The elder Elric apologized for the previous day.

"You're disgusting," Edward's voice shot out without waver, "I can't believe you support people like that."

"Did I ever say I supported any of this?"

Hohenheim's remorseful voice irritated Edward, "Then what the hell do you do with them? Why do you listen to them? Why do you involve ME? Those people have nothing to do with me and what I need to accomplish," he never turned around to face his father; he simply spouted off into the night.

"I have my reasons," was as vague as an answer he could give, "but even if I wanted to leave, I could not. It's the same reason I could not let you leave the other night."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Edward's bangs shrouded his face.

"Edward, this is not something I can turn my back on. If you had walked away, someone would have killed you before sunrise."

Hohenheim watched Edward as his head slowly dropped forward. The concern was etched into every word he'd spoken; his face stiffened up, "I wouldn't have asked you to come if I'd known-"

"I want to go home."

The conversation came to an end. The life deflated from the eldest Elric as a helpless feeling bore down on him. There could never been enough he could do to allow Edward to exist within this society.

"I hate being here. I hate living in fear of my own morals. I hate how the type of person I socialize with suddenly makes me friend or foe. I hate pretending I hate something just so I can survive," his quiet voice of discontent could never accurately describe how he felt. Facing into the darkness, Ed rose to his feet. Hohenheim wondered if he should speak up in some way. Edward slowly lifted his arms at his sides; as if they were wings present to be spread. He turned his palms forward and slapped his hands together across his chest in honour of a memory, "I hate how tasteless everything is here. I hate how I'm never full after I eat, how nothing has any colour, how I don't dream at night, how I-," he abruptly stopped his rant. The pause lingered in the cold air before Edward breathed it all back in. He finally stepped up the few stairs upon the porch near where his father stood. Avoiding eye contact with the man, Edward his lifted his left hand to the sky, "I want the stars to get brighter if I get closer to them."

Nothing was said; Edward listened as his father opened the doors and stepped back inside the building. His hand dropped limp at his side as he stood there, eyes shut, listening for the world to show some sign of life. The only thing he could hear was the cat in a garbage can down the street. It was a wretched silence.

He startled from the moment; his father put a coat over his shoulders. "It's cold out," Hohenheim's voice said quietly.

"I'm not cold," Edward's shoulders loosened as he pulled the jacket around himself.

"Don't let that change. Come inside, you need some sleep."

Edward turned and he looked upwards to his father in the doorway. Though unintentional, he let the man see the exhaustion within his eyes brought on by playing society's game for a day and a half. The inability to do anything to help anyone but himself bore heavily upon his pale expression; too tired to bark at the figure standing in his way. In mirror, his father's downcast expression looked back at his son; wondering. It was a move made with caution; Hohenheim reached a concerned hand out, and within the age-old palm, cradled his son's evening-chilled cheek. The time it took Edward to react allowed Hohenheim the chance to confirm the existence of whatever pain existed there. And though Edward finally stepped back to avoid inevitable discovery, Hohenheim took a step that frightened him far more than the evening before; a pair of strong arms reached around and pulled in his sleepless son. He found it unnerving to discover the only thing left unsurrendered was the deliberate control over Edward's own breathing. Within the lifeless silence of the Munich night, Hohenheim wondered how long he'd be allowed to hold his son.

Edward's forehead dropped softly into the man's broad shoulder; exhaustion was overpowering, "I'm going home. I'll find a way." Unwavering determination manifested itself deep within his soul, even at his weakest.

"I hate how this place makes me feel."

**

* * *

**

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**  
R&R is loved and appreciated!

Please see my user info for more information on Ed's Auto-Mail and FMA time-line (and other stuff I may have put there).

I'm going to run with the idea that Hohenheim joined the Thule Society before 1921. I _doubt _he would have gotten involved with it at the point it was at in 1921. In this story I'll say that he's been in the Thule Society since about mid 1919 - before Hess joined.

I love angsty Ed... I love Hohenheim. The two go well together for me.

"_What's wrong with launching Edward into space?_" The first liquid fuelled rocket wasn't launched until March 1926, the first live 'organism' (a dog) was launched into space November 1957. Edward is going to get home loooong before 1926.

**And Now You Know** **  
**  
A 1921 bottle of Rheingau Riesling will cost you $10,000 dollars now.

Rudolph Hess was the 16th member of the Thule Society (June 1920)

NSDAP – National Socialist German Worker Party.

Matthias Erzberger – former German Finance Minister during WWI murdered by members of the Freikorps (August 26, 1921.)

Walter Rathenau – German Minister of Reconstruction (1921)

**Chapter 54 Feedback  
**  
Ed's Arm – Ed's arm isn't completely immobile. In chapter 52, Ed was able to tie his hair in the ponytail behind his head – that's why Hohenheim commented when he noticed Ed was struggling. He also shocked Professor Oberth in Schässburg by being able to lift the 'arm to shoulder's height'. Ed was having problems with the arm because a major connection for the arm had wiggled loose.

chibi-sherri (comment) – Hmm… that line's poorly worded on my part, sorry for the confusion… –fixes that and parts of the rest of the paragraph so it flows better–. Thanks for pointing it out.


	5. Media of Suspicion

**He Who Searches For Himself**

* * *

_"My head went blank the first time I saw her. Her hair was so thick and long, her eyes, her face… her body. It was Winry but it wasn't; it couldn't be. It was her voice - only it was missing the tone making her the same age as me. I thought maybe I'd fallen asleep, or stranger yet, stepped to the other side of the looking glass. She hugged me, and cried; I should have cried with her but some part of me told me it wasn't real. She smelt real, smelt the same. She had the same warmth, but it felt funny to hug her. We sat on her bed for the rest of the afternoon; she kept fluffing my hair. She talked to me about stuff I couldn't even imagine. It's too much to get into. But with every word she said for the next few weeks, it felt like the gap between the Winry I remembered and the Winry I'd get to know grew greater and greater. At first, it felt as though I'd lost a best friend. I felt alienated from her like that for weeks, months. Sensei finally asked me if something was wrong; I told her it was awkward. She told me that I shouldn't think about it like I'd lost a friend, but instead, like I'd gained an older sister."_

**Chapter 56 - Media of Suspicion**

It was far too early to be going in to work. It was far too early any morning to go in for 7:30AM; but there was never any choice. And she greeted every officer as he or she walked in, wished them well on their morning, and continued to sort through the mountain of papers that never ceased to pile up on her desk. It wasn't all that interesting either: court orders, interrogation logs, criminal records, and somehow duty rosters fond there way into the piles from time to time. The sun would find it's way into her office at around 10:30 when it would come around the front of the complex. It would last until sometime after 6pm, or whenever she chose to go home – whichever happened first. And it was about that time when the sun began to shine a strip on the wall that a Sergeant who's name she'd never asked for, but had seen all the time, wandered into her office space.

"Ma'am?"

Sheska adjusted her glasses, "Yes?"

The young officer placed a telegram slip down upon her desk, "This came in for you a few minutes ago."

"Oh? Thank you," Sheska picked up the paper as the officer exited the room. Her eyes scanned the notice over once; without a second glance, she promptly folded it twice and tucked it into her chest pocket. Finding herself nervously drumming her fingers on the desk, Sheska worried over her next few steps. Though it served no purpose, she looked left and right sharply before abruptly getting to her feet. Quickly tiding the books stacked on her desk she grabbed up her jacket from the coat hook and marched out of the room.

"Sergeant!" she called out.

The young man stopped and looked back.

"If anyone comes looking for me, can you tell them that I went to pick up a few documents? I need some additional references," without giving the man a chance to engage in any type of conversation, she turned on her heels and exited the main doors.

Setting his briefcase down against the door, Mr. Mitchell gave a light laugh to himself. Looking across his library, the elder man gazed upon Al; sitting on the floor, his head awkwardly titled back while he slept against the sofa. His shoes echoed in the silence as he stepped up to Al and knelt down.

"You're going to get a cramp in your neck if you stay like that," he said quietly. With as much care as he could, he put an arm behind Al's back, the other at his legs, and he slowly lifted Al onto the sofa. The man's effort went in vain when Al suddenly startled awake.

"Sorry," Mitchell gave a sheepish smile, "I tried at least."

Slightly disoriented, Al looked around the room as he tried to regain his bearings, "What time is it?" his voice cracking as he slowly came awake.

Mitchell glanced at his watch, "quarter to eleven. What time did you come down here?"

"I came in at eight, but last time I checked it was nine thirty," Al brushed his hands through his hair quickly, "Is your wife okay?"

Caught off guard by the sudden question, Mitchell gave a startled look at Al, "She's doing better now, why do you ask?"

"I heard you leave at 3am, I heard the officer walking in the hall mention something about your wife," Al knelt back down on the floor as he re-organized the books on the low table, "I thought it had to be important if they woke you up."

Sitting down in the second sofa section across the table from Al, a light smile crossed his face, "It was a bit of an emergency, but she's came through alright," Mitchell reached across and picked up one of the books Al had been reading, "what were you doing up at that hour anyways?"

Al gave a momentary pause in his actions before continuing on, "I couldn't sleep."

"You have a lot on your mind to think about; hopefully it doesn't keep you up every night," Mitchell flipped the book open in his hand, "And perhaps these books will give you something else to focus on."

Al dropped three books into the empty couch seat behind himself and hopped back onto his cushion, "These are incredible! If only Sensei could see them."

"Sensei?"

Al momentarily froze in place, his mind blanking on him for a few moments before he found a suitable answer, "There was a lady once who helped me with Alchemy, it was a long time ago though, when I was first learning," before any more questions could come his way, Al redirected, "where did you get stuff like this? The coding on some of the texts is so intricate it could take a lifetime to figure them out."

Mitchell laughed at that comment, "I know; I tried and failed several times over the winter to figure them out. And even if my wife and I can't get our heads around it, they're her inheritance and she wouldn't trade them for anything. It's quite the collection isn't it?"

"I could live in here and never know enough," Al's eyes once again circled the room; still in awe. The pair's attention was grabbed at the sound of the library door opening; entering was a woman with her brown hair tied up at the back of her head, a white apron around her waste. As she stepped forward, her toes would peek out from beneath the floor length peach dress. She cradled a baby in her arms; it's tiny hands reaching up as she smiled faintly down back at it. The longer Al stared at her, the more she made him shiver. He wondered if he was the only one who could feel how the woman displaced the life within the room.

"Oh lovely, my baby girl's awake," Mitchell rose from his seat quickly and took his child from the woman's arms, "oh your smile makes my horrid night so much better." The tiny child squeaked in response.

Al watched from over his shoulder at the scene taking place. He wondered if this lady was Mitchell's wife; but how could she be, wasn't she in the hospital?

"Alphonse," the boy's attention was snagged at the call of his name. Coming up next to Al's seat, Mitchell held the baby in his arms, "do you want to hold her?"

Extending his arms, Al accepted the offer and Mitchell gentle placed his infant daughter into Al's care, "You hold her so well," the man admired.

"I have a friend at home with a baby. He's older than your daughter though," Al looked down into the striking wide brown eyes of this infant who looked back up at him; her tiny mouth wide open, smiling without a care. Al couldn't help but giggle at the un-encouraged acceptance of his arms.

"Sir," the young voice of the woman spoke up, "your wife has requested you join her tomorrow at 4PM; the young miss you and your wife are adopting has made a request to be at her bedside."

"Has she? What a lovely child," the man could hardly contain the smile that stretched wide.

Al brushed the thin bits of hair from the baby's forehead, "Baby's going to have a big sister?" he asked in a soft voice; his attention entertained by the young child's soft gums chewing on his index finger.

"Yes she is," Mitchell announced proudly, his fists planted on his hips. In the sudden blink of an eye, his mood changed, "4PM? She knows I'm in parliament until five. How long will the girl be there?"

The lady, whom Al concluded must be the baby's nanny, clasped her hands in front of herself, "There are documents she wanted you to sign so the two of you could take custody. I assume the child will remain until you arrive."

Al's eyes noted the startled response of Mitchell, "Already?"

"It appears so. You would have to discuss it further with your wife if you wanted to know more, my apologies Sir," the woman stepped between Mitchell and Alphonse; she bent over and began to remove the infant from the young boy's arms, "it's time for her lunch."

Al reluctantly returned the baby to her original holder, "I can carry her, if it's alright?"

And though the woman smiled down at him, it seemed devoid of the emotions associated with the facial expression; the look made him uneasy, "it's fine, I can look after the baby. Please continue with your readings."

Al's arms slowly dropped back own to his sides as he watched the woman carry the infant out of the room once more. He glanced up to Mitchell, who's smile never left his face; it was as if he could not feel the emptiness of the woman's presence.

* * *

"I told you, this really wasn't necessary," Hohenheim pushed through his front door as he fumbled to put his keys back into the jacket pocket.

"Nonsense! You've been so good to us today, I'm certain you had so many other things to do than entertain me all day," Tilly followed the Professor in, two paper grocery bags in her arms, "the least we could do was help you with these."

"It's no trouble Sir, really. We needed to stop by to see Edward anyways," stepping on the heel of his shoe; Oberth slipped his foot out, "where do you want these?"

"Just on the table in here is fine," Hohenheim called out from around the right side corner.

Setting her bags down upon the table, Tilly gazed around the kitchen, "Oh, you have such a nice kitchen, it's so clean. It's nice to know that there are men out there who know how to clean up in the kitchen. I want a stove and refrigerator like that too… maybe someone will buy one for me someday."

Oberth's eye twitched while the temptation to peg his wife off with one of the new apples crossed his mind. Everyone's attention was suddenly startled at a high whistling noise that came from near the window. In a unison swing of their heads, everyone's eyes focused on the silver teakettle sitting upon the stove; spewing a steady flow of white steam from beneath it's fluttering lid.

"Shit!" came the distinct voice of Edward as he was heard thundering across the upstairs floor and down the stairs. As his socks helped him slide into the doorframe, Ed moved no further once he caught sight of the astonishing number of people gathered the kitchen.

Hohenheim placed the kettle down upon a cool element and turned back to his son, "DON'T leave the stove unattended."

"I was just putting something-"

"Did you not hear me when I said 'DON'T"?" Hohenheim scowled with genuine disapproval, "if you're not paying attention the house could burn down."

With a deep breath, Edward found his most insensitive voice, "_Sorry._" At that, he deliberately changed topics, "what are you two doing here?" Ed brought his hand over his mouth as he gave a cough.

"Did you just wake up?" Oberth laughed at Ed's sloppy attire.

Looking down at himself, Edward examined his black sweatpants and plain white top, "What? This? I wasn't going anywh-" peripheral vision telling him something was coming, he swung his head out of the way before Tilly could grab his hair, "WHAT?"

"Edward," her hands landed firmly upon her hips, "only poor farm handlers braid their hair. You look like you crawled out of a barn."

The most perplexed expression he'd given off in weeks hung around his face; his finger pointing back at the braid "…Because of this?" he stepped further away from Tilly and moved to the piping kettle.

Oberth laughed again at his wife's obvious disapproval of the situation. Edward glanced back at her with a look of caution before pouring the hot water into a cup; Hohenheim's questioning gaze followed him as he moved. Stepping up to the table of cluttered groceries, Ed started to poke around in the bags of fresh food, "What are you two doing here?"

"I received a telegram from an acquaintance in Austria," Oberth glanced down at Edward's plain cup of water, "…I passed by him from time to time during the war, our units were stationed close by one at one point. We had drinks once in a while before he was injured. He invited Tilly and myself out for dinner; he told me to bring anyone I wanted with me. I told him you'd be coming."

"Huh?" his eyes grew wide as his expression turned perplexed quite quickly; putting his hand at his chest as he gave a cough Ed sputtered at them, "I was in the middle of things. And didn't we just do that?"

Tilly giggled, "That was days ago, and just you and Hermann. Mr. Lang is bringing some uptown associates with him. It'll be a social event."

"Yeah but…" he picked up his cup and blew the steam off the top of the water all the while giving a disapproving frown at the thought of mixing with the 'uptown socialites', "you could have asked _me_ first?"

"Of course not! You'd say no," Tilly raised her finger.

Edward scowled at her as he sipped the water.

"You're just as bad as Hermann some days. You sit there with your face in some book or notes. Someone has to grab you by the collar and haul you outside if you're going to unwind at all," Tilly's matter of fact comments ended with her hands upon her hips. By this time her husband sat himself down in one of the table chairs; his head in his hand as he looked on unimpressed by the comments.

With the narrowing of his eyes and another sip from the glass, Edward stared back at her, "You haven't known me long enough to say something like that…"

"Mathilde, Hermann, why don't you two have a seat in the living room until Ed is ready to join you. I'm sure he has no objection to going upstairs, getting changed, and dressing appropriately for your friend tonight," Hohenheim decided it was time to organize the disorganized masses who where clogging up his kitchen. At his urging, the couple excused themselves from the room. Finally, with a dissatisfied glare, Edward headed upstairs. Stopping at the top stair, he turned back and looked down at his father who started his ascent behind him.

"I know how this conversation goes, so do you. You can skip it," Edward said flatly.

Hohenheim's attention was grabbed by a comment that did not seem to come as a surprise, "Pardon?"

A disgruntled sigh followed as Ed took a sharp drink from his cooling glass, "'Edward, are you feeling okay?' 'Yes, I'm always okay.' 'You're not running a fever?' 'For the thousandth time, no.' 'You be-" Edward stopped himself; he watched his father turn without a word and head back down the stairs. At the top step, he stood waiting for Hohenheim to give him some final remark; but nothing came. The eldest Elric simply turned down the hall towards the living room.

Edward stood alone in the early evening light that filtered in the hall behind him, his surprised eyes examining the empty space where his father once stood. The pinch in his chest told him to go down the stairs and ask what he was doing walking away. It was uncharacteristic; his father never let the issue drop so easily. Holding the cup in the palm of his left hand, Ed stood at the top stair and waited for the man to come back. When the ticking of the hall clock began to echo over the voices in the living room a concerned look entered his eyes. Finally he turned and headed to his bedroom.

* * *

At the sound of the door opening, Havoc lifted his eyes up from the paperwork piled upon the desk.

"Enjoying my chair, Lieutenant?" Roy stepped into the room, a wooden cane in hand to steady his posture.

"Your chair is the only thing I'm enjoying," Havoc's eyes rolled as he popped the pen into his mouth in place of the absent cigarette, "you get some of the most boring reports to finalize. I thought you said this job was interesting."

Dressed in a casual white collard shirt and jeans, Mustang sat himself down in one of the chairs at the meeting table, "The job is interesting, all of the perks were that is."

"Your free-reign perks have become bureaucratical pen ink," Havoc spat out the pen and it bounced on the desk.

With a smirk upon his face, Mustang grinned back at his subordinate, "And when I come back, you can keep on wasting all that ink. You've done such an outstanding job in my place; you can continue doing what you're doing. There are hundreds of other things in my jurisdiction I can oversee with all that spare time."

Havoc's eyebrow twitched at the thought, "I'm going to respectfully decline, Sir. You've done quite enough already to get me into this position."

"I will take your request into consideration," Roy continued to smirk through their play. Taking a moment to relax in the chair, the Brig. General stared across the room haphazardly, "did you look after that officer?"

Picking up the pen once more, Havoc returned to leafing through the papers, "he was shipped out this morning."

"And his daughter?"

"She was sent home," the younger officer's eyes did not lift from the sheets he scanned.

Roy gave a slow nod of approval as he turned to watch Havoc work, "The statements?"

"Second from the bottom," Havoc's eyes glanced to a stack of envelopes at the left corner of the desk, "I've been ordered to send them to the investigations department before the end of my duty."

"Isn't that a shame," Roy slowly stood up; trying not to give away the feeling of displeasure he endured by having to rely on the cane once more. He'd enjoyed several weeks without the wretched device. Regardless, he took a stroll around the room; timing his steps with the ticking of the clock. Havoc's eyes trained on his paperwork as the pen found it's way back into his teeth. He did not look up again until Mustang's voice caught his attention.

"Lieutenant," Roy pulled the cigarette package out from the chest pocket of his jacket hanging on the coat hanger. Havoc's eyebrows raised as he noticed his last two cigarettes in his commanding officer's hands, "I think you should take a trip to the convenience store and pick another package of cigarettes," within his fingers, Roy snapped the final pair, "you seem to be out."

The pen within Havoc's teeth drooped at the sight.

"While you're out, why not swing by the central library and pick up something for me to read while I sit in this old office," Roy swept the cigarette parts away with his foot, "I'm sure I'll get bored by 4:30. Perhaps someone's biography would suffice."

The mortified expression upon Havoc's face slowly melted away as he stood up from the chair, "Sure…" was the cautious reply. Walking over to the coat rack, he retrieved his jacket as Roy tossed the empty package into the garbage. Before Havoc's hand was able to firmly grasp the door handle, the knob turned on it's own and nearly opened into Havoc; he stumbled out of the way.

"Pardon me, Lieutenant," Hawkeye stood in the doorway, her light beige jacket buttoned up over her black shirt and pants; a briefcase in hand, "you were on your way out?"

Havoc's hand quickly made its way to a salute, "Yes, Major. Excuse me." Stepping past his superior, the Lieutenant left the room as Roy made his way back to what was once his desk chair. Sitting carefully down in the leather seat, a dissatisfied look crossed his face.

"That still sounds wrong."

"Does it?" Riza gave him a questioning look as she grabbed one of the chairs and pulled it over to the desk.

"Second Lieutenant to First Lieutenant was not that hard, but Major? I hope you don't let the prestige of being such a high-ranking female officer go to your head," he said with a careless expression as he flipped through Havoc's paperwork.

"Since I'm still listed as part of your direct subordinate structure, I will have too much 'housekeeping' to do before something like that could happen," Riza sat herself down, a classic business look still on her face.

Dismissing the comment, Roy's gave a slight adjustment to his patch as he scanned over the papers, "There is too much paperwork to get anything done with efficiency now, lots of things keep getting lost, including overdue promotions. Regardless, it was still a good day yesterday for you two," Roy's hand carefully slipped the envelope of statements out from under the pile, "it's a shame more paperwork will go missing."

"You're putting Lieutenant Havoc in a tough situation, especially after his third star," Riza gave him a glance that was meant more for guilt than disapproval.

Roy, visually unfazed by the comment, handed the envelope to her, "If he gets me what I need from the library, I'm sure I can do something to make sure he survives the situation."

With a sigh, Riza tucked the envelope into her briefcase.

"Speaking of promotions," Roy reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, "someone should look into promoting that Sergeant Broche. He's been quite convenient twice already," he handed the telegram card to Hawkeye.

Examining the details of the hand written copy of the original telegram card, she handed it back to him without a second thought, "He neglected his observational duties with young Alphonse in the hospital. He was also neglecting his daily duties while chatting with the Sergeant at the transmission desk. Luck and good timing are not a skills."

"I like to think I've mastered that skill of luck," the corner or Roy's mouth curled up, "you're such a harsh Major."

Riza stood up from her seat, brushing her hair behind her shoulders, "Someone has to be." Heading back towards the door she gave a glance over her shoulder, "perhaps I'll take your car out for a drive once more?"

"Have it for as long as you need it," Roy's eye began skimming over a few papers he'd picked up, "don't forget to come back here and pick me up." Hearing the door shut behind her, Roy raised an eyebrow at the lack of a response. Something told him not to put it past her to accidentally 'forget' to pick him up.

* * *

Without warning, Fritz lifted Edward's right arm into the air, "That's amazing! It's just like a robot!"

He snatched his arm back, his voice sharp with defiance, "It's a prosthesis. I control it on my own."

"That's incredible, I've never seen anything like that," the man everyone addressed as Fritz sat himself back down in his chair at their round dining table. He adjusted the monocle that sat at his left eye, "I don't suppose you'd want to be part of a movie for me, eh?"

The glaring look of displeasure shot a cross the table; Edward popped his fork into his mouth, "No."

"Ah! I could do so much with an idea like that," the man leaned back in his chair as he scooped a heaping of mashed potatoes from his plate into his mouth. At the man's right, the woman who graced his side placed her elbows on the tabled; her fingers interlaced.

"So could I. Can you imagine, a world where Man starts to become machine. It would be the dehumanization of society; Man could loose it's identity," her amused grin ran ear to ear.

Edward's did not. He was not entertained by either the implications that he was something 'un-human' nor how they were turning this into some fantasy story. He took a mental note to inform the Oberth couple to keep quiet about the whole thing in the future. The corner of Ed's eyes caught them as they laughed.

"Now, come on," the woman directly across from Ed waved her hand so she could have everyone's attention, "you're just being foolish. Robots… my word," wrapping her cloth napkin around her hand, she dabbed her mouth clear of any gravy; the curling ends of her short-cut dark hair bobbed at her neck as she did.

"Lya, it's just fun," Oberth straightened his shirt as he sat next to Edward, "I'd been given the impression you had a better spirit than that."

The young woman, Lya, picked up her cutlery once more, not yet finished with her meal. Her complexion and eyes teased that she could have been someone younger than the entire table, yet she had the stunning curvature of a woman within that black dress. She gave a bit of a laugh while she straightened the fur around her shoulders, "I'm sorry, it's been a long couple days. I had such a short time to get my business in Munich done."

"Poor thing, when is your train to Berlin coming in?" between the woman between Lya and Fritz perfected her posture in the seat, her similar short blonde curls bouncing in identical fashion as the other women. When she wasn't acting 'foolish' at the prompting of her companion, she carried the most maturity of the entire table without saying a word.

Distancing himself from the conversation that he felt too out-aged and out-classed in, Ed's eyes wandered around the room disinterested. His gaze scanned the late night room filled with some of the highest profile figures in Munich. Without consciously doing do, his mind wandered back to earlier in the day.

Ed's face suddenly twisted as he felt the sharp poke of a pointed shoe into his shin. He looked at the 5 other members of his table to find Lya as the only one giving him a 'pay attention' gaze. Continuing to sit within the discomfort of the table, he straightened his tie.

"Lya, how'd you get to know a creepy old man like Fritz here," Oberth poked at them through a half grin, adjusting the napkin in his collar.

"Old man, he calls me," Fritz let out a hearty laugh that was drowned out in the noise of the crowded venue.

As she settled her giggles, Lya looked to Oberth and his wife, "I bumped into Mr. Lang at the train station and he recognized me from one of my stage performances. We talked for a while and found out we both know Robert Reinert; the director of my last movie."

Ed poked what was left of the steak on his plate with his fork; still fairly hungry. He chewed casually on a few pieces he'd cut.

Oberth raised an eyebrow, "Reinert… the name isn't familiar."

Fritz waved a hand casually, "Oh he's gone by Dinesen before. I worked with him just after I got out of the hospital. He helped me get my taste in the film industry. I assisted him in a serial; you must have seen it at some point. It was called Homunculus."

His fist hit his chest before the fork had a chance to ring off the floor; Edward tried desperately to cough back up the dinner he'd just inhaled. The gathering at the table stood up in unison as Ed curled over in his chair, his hands covering his face as he began to cough suddenly. Oberth grabbed him by his shoulder but Ed pushed the hand away, "I'm fine," his hands once again covered his mouth as he coughed trying to regain his breath, "sorry."

"Chew your food more carefully next time," Tilly crossed her legs over as she sat back down.

Still red in the cheeks from the sudden start, Ed looked to Fritz, "What was that movie called?"

"Homunculus. It was a six part serial I did some casual work on. Big hit during the war," Fritz picked up the water jug in the middle of the table and poured Ed a glass.

Ed's eyes drilled into the man, "What was it about?"

"Oh, jeez," Fritz hung his arm over the back of his chair as he sat, "it was about a scientist who creates the 'perfect creature' called Homunculus. The thing discovers it has no soul and isn't really human. Homunculus resents the fact society has rejected it and that it's not a real human. It starts tyrannizing all the people in an act of vengeance. Homunculus ends up becoming the dictator of some nation, then tries to destroy other nations and conquer the world."

Ed paused, running the story through his mind. The similarities sent a shiver through his skin, "Can I see this film?"

Fritz glanced around to the hour-long companions at his table, "I don't think it's in any theatres anymore, this was 5 years ago."

"Edward," All eyes fell upon Lya as she sat observing the whole situation, "you said that your father was a Professor at the University correct? You can check and see if the University has a copy. I heard that some of the schools in Berlin had copies of popular films."

Ed nodded to her, suddenly knowing what he was going to do tomorrow. His attention turned over to Fritz once more, "So what happens?"

Fritz ran his hand through his hair, "I believe… it gets struck down by a bolt of lightning and dies."

It was the first time the whole evening Edward had cracked a smile; it was more than a smile. He sat there and found the fate of the storied Homunculus something he could not resist laughing at. He was the only one laughing, but he didn't mind.

If only it was that easy.

* * *

At the barking of one of the elder librarians, Havoc's unlit cigarette found it's way behind his ear. Following the directions of a much nicer young lady, who became a good reason to return to the library at a later time, Havoc's library stroll took him to the second floor. Biographies were kept in a subsection of the library, down an adjoining hall from the main collection. Somewhat concerned by the lack of patrons within the library at this time of day, the lieutenant began to wonder if he'd misread the Brig. General's ulterior motive – if there was one at all. Standing at the beginnings of what was part of the historical non-fiction section of the library, Havoc's expression fell as he entered the subsection; it was not an area he frequented.

"I can't do that!"

At the echoing of a voice sounding as if it should have been whispered, Havoc took a step back behind one of the shelving units. The muffled voices disappeared into the general hum of the heavy circulation system once more. With cautious steps forward, he moved deeper into the room; thankful that his footsteps were being drowned out. Eventually picking up on the vibration of voices within the room, Havoc followed the sounds as they grew more distinct; carefully placing each foot as he made a step, watching his own shadow to make sure it never peeked out before he did.

"I just need you to find out who made that call…"

"It'll be sealed, there'd be so much trouble if I got caught. I don't know who'd charge me first for that."

"You're in the investigations department! I'm sure you can do some 'investigating' into the file and find out if the call to Dublith was even made by the military."

"And so what? What if I find out who made that call? How's that suppose to help you find him? Didn't I tell you where I think he is?"

"I'd at least know if it was them or not! There weren't any names given in the paper, I don't know for sure if they're even here. If it was Lt. Ross or Lt. Colonel Armstrong then they wouldn't have called the meat shop asking about Izumi - unless something was wrong."

"I have heard people in the halls saying that the police are having problems getting decent information about what happened to 'the boy's' mother. There were some problems that went on between the military and the police up when the girl's father showed up. I don't know what though. If they called, they might have been looking for information."

"I think they called the night before you said the father showed up. But I just… I can't imagine Izumi vanishing like that. There has to be more."

"I don't understand. If Al was one of those two kids in the explosion, why would they have called Izumi's husband over calling you at Rizembool?"

"Sheska have you seen him? There's no way they'd call Rizembool first and risk sounding that stupid. They'd call Dublith first because you can't mistake Izumi."

Havoc cleared his throat causing the girls to muffle their shrieking at the sound. With his casual swagger, Havoc turned down the isle and walked the length of the shelves towards the study table where the girls sat; he popped the cigarette back into his teeth, "Hey girls, is this where everyone playing hooky comes?"

"L-lieutenant Havoc!" both girls squeaked in unrehearsed unison. Standing up immediately at Havoc's presence, Sheska's stress level doubled, "I'll head back to my post right away, Sir. I didn't intend on being gone for so long."

"Woah woah… I didn't come here to send you back. I actually came here to kill some time and pick up a book," Havoc gave an amused chew of his cigarette, "did I scare you girls, neither of you look too good."

"Oh no," came their response in chorus as they forced themselves to relax back into the chairs.

Grabbing a chair at the eight-person table, Havoc spun it around and sat down upon the backwards seat, "Winry, you show up in Central and don't even stop by to say hi?"

"Uh," the brightest face she could put on over her shocked expression came alive, "Sorry about that, if I had a chance to stop by, I would," the corner of her smile twitched unintentionally, "How long have you been in here?"

"Just walked in and thought I recognized the voices," Grinning charismatically through his teeth, Havoc relaxed over the back of the chair, "I thought I heard you mention something about Rizembool? How's everyone doing out there?"

Sheska glanced over to Winry who gave a vigorous nod, "Oh we're doing alright; the boys are enjoying the change in life style. It's much more relaxing out in the countryside for everyone; more time to think, research. It's good. We like it. I've always liked it."

"Good to know those brother's are getting on alright. What about you? What brought you all the way out to Central?"

Brushing her bangs aside Winry gave a light giggle, "Al was heading to Dublith, and I thought he might have stopped off to see some people in Central. But I didn't know if his train schedule was the same as mine. And since I haven't seen him at all in the city, he's probably back on the train to Dublith."

"Well I haven't seen Al, and I'm certain he would have dropped by Headquarters if he had stopped by. And even if he hadn't, it's not like he's hard to miss," Havoc took the cigarette out of his mouth and slid it behind his ear, a puzzled look crossing his eyes, "wouldn't you two have come in on the same train though?"

Staring blankly back at Havoc for an awkward moment of silence, Winry finally perked up, "Oh, no no, um, I came in from Rush Valley. I've been staying with a friend down there."

"Oh!" Havoc gave an affirmative nod, "You must have a few hookups in other cities by now I guess."

Giving a laugh with as little nerves as possible, Winry relaxed a bit in her chair, "Yes, that's very true… very true. Um, I heard it's been exciting around here this last week." She searched for a swift change in topic that was more relevant to her curiosity.

"Yeah, it has. I've tried to keep my nose out of it. All that uproar did was give me more papers to read and sign," Havoc let out a genuine sigh of displeasure.

Winry tipped her head at the comment; "You have a desk job now? I can't see you doing that."

Havoc rolled his eyes, "It turned into a desk job. The Brigadier General is going to hate it when he comes back and we'll get to hear all about it."

"Oh that's right," Sheska's eyes turned over to Winry, unsure if she had ever been made completely aware of the man's condition. Winry simply nodded in acceptance of the situation.

"He's still on injury leave?"

"Yeah, but he's due back before the end of summer. I get to warm the chair for him in the meantime," He gave a smirk to the comment, "why don't you girls come by the office. I can take a cue from the Brig. General and kill an afternoon's work worth of paperwork once in a while," with the flick of his finger, Havoc pointed at Winry, "and no one's seen you since the end of last summer. You can't think that we're not interested in how everyone's been doing?"

Both girl's instantly went on defence, "Oh no, we can't."

"I shouldn't, there's so much I need to do."

"And I have to get going."

"Oh come on," Havoc glanced to Sheska, "if you show up in my office, then I can vouch for your whereabouts _if _anyone comes looking," he gave her a wink.

Sheska's face fell a bit at the playful glint in Havoc's eye, "I'm being blackmailed, I think," she glanced to Winry who was quickly getting up from her seat.

"No really, I can't. There're a lot of errands I need to run today. I need to pick up a few things for my shop and for my Grandmother," with a panicked haste, Winry began to gather her two travel bags behind her chair.

"Well hey," Havoc grabbed up the second bag before Winry could, "I'll drive you around this afternoon, how about that? That'll give you some extra time before the stores close and everyone should still be around by the time you're done."

Winry's hand tightened nervously around the shoulder strap of the one bag as she tossed her lengths of blonde hair behind her shoulders, "I can't trouble you like that."

"No trouble. It's a voluntary taxi service," Havoc snapped his fingers as he tossed the bag over his shoulder, "come on, how often do you pass through Central?"

Winry cracked a smile for him, something inside her told her that no matter how hard she insisted, she was going to loose this battle. The prospect of chatting about the past 7 plus months made her so nervous she could tremble from head to toe. She knew full well that very little she would say would be the truth, and that hurt most of all, "Well, I suppose for a bit." Winry zipped up her black jacket and brushed the wrinkles from her skirt. She glanced back over her shoulder to Sheska who had already given in.

Havoc returned the cigarette to his teeth and turned out of the room, "The car's outside."

* * *

"Homunculus, eh?" The older lady at the library desk scratched her chin, "I know the title, but I'm not sure if it's something we have."

"If it's not in your back room, is there anywhere else it might be?" the look of frustration had started to become quite apparent in Ed's tone.

"Um…" the woman adjusted the bun on her head, "if you head through those doors on your left, the door at the end of the hall way is for the photo development lab. If it's not in the main section, sometimes reels get put in that storage closet if no one's borrowed them in a while."

"Do you have a key for the room?"

As if to annoy Ed further the woman slowly began opening the drawers of the desk she was sitting at. She picked through the drawers as if she were picking through the garbage; carefully as if each item were diseased. Ed's eye twitched.

"Oh, no I'm sorry. I forgot; there's someone in there right now. If you knock on the door, maybe she'll let you in."

Without a speck of gratitude Ed turned on his heels and marched off through the doors on his left. His thin ponytail danced behind him as he walked down the hallway. He didn't need that lady to make his mood any worse than it already was today; his father's continued silence was doing a fine enough job as it was.

Standing in front of the door, Edward gave a firm knock. Again, his eye twitched as he waited while no response coming from within. He knocked again, shoving his hands in his pockets as he waited for someone to open the door. Ed had been warned that entering a Photography room could cause serious trouble; the light would ruin film development. But again, there was no sign of life. He grabbed the door handle and wiggled it, hoping to grab someone's attention from within; to his surprise, the door popped open.

Ed's eyes slowly peeked around the door into the unoccupied room. Shutting the door behind himself, he flicked on the dim desk light near the door and looked around.

"Hello?" Edward began to walk slowly around the room, by passing bits of photography equipment and a personal camera on a central large table as he did so. He was surprised by how large the room was. Walking his circle around the room he noted the doors that graced each wall. Thinking it was rather ridiculous to have multiple entrances to a film lab, each door must be a storage closet. Ed grabbed the handle of the first door on his clockwise journey and pulled it open; his eyes instantly squinting as he found himself bombarded by light. Rubbing his eyes, he peered out into this un-trodden white corridor. Giving his head a shake, Ed had nearly closed the door to save his sight when the distinct sound of a girl's giggling voice rang out. Without a second thought Ed stepped into the hallway and tried to follow the voice. Standing in the corridor it seemed to be a link between six different rooms, one at each end, and two on each side. Finding the sound of the giggles loudest at the end of the hall, Ed opened yet another door and looked inside.

His ears were greeted by the sudden scream of a young voice; and in the darkness of this video screening room, a girl who only came to his shoulder suddenly stood before him.

"I'm so sorry Sir! I'll put this all back I swear! I was just curious!"

"Huh? Curious about what?" Ed shook his head and looked down into the striking blue eyes of a petrified girl; barely old enough to be called a young lady, "who are you? Are you allowed in here?" his eyes suddenly full of questions.

"Wow…" the girl stared up at him – the conversation froze as she did so; her eyes wide with wonder.

Ed blinked and took a startled step back.

"…Your eyes are yellow…"

Sharply adjusting his tie, Ed cleared his throat, "Who are you and what are you doing here? Are you even OLD enough to be in here?"

The girl began to fidget with the sides of her dress, "Um, my name is Brigitte… and I was supposed to develop some film, but I got distracted. I'm sorry, please don't call the Nuns. I'll just leave."

"Nuns? What nuns?" Ed scratched his head completely lost by the comment.

The girl's eyes narrowed at him, "Do you work here Sir? You're dressed awful fine to not…"

"No. I came looking for a film reel," his eyes glanced up at the projection still flashing on the screen, "what are you watching?"

"It's an animated film! I saw it in the storage closet when I came into the room, I wanted to see it," Brigitte quickly ran over and turned off the projector as Ed turned on the light within the room. He watched as the girl stood on an overturned box; with precision she rewound the film reel through the machine, and then disassembled the film set up upon the projector.

Again, Ed gave her a questioning look, "How old are you?"

"Thirteen, Sir," she carefully lay the reel back into it's container and pushed the lid down over it.

"And you came here to develop film!" Ed returned to scratching his head.

Swiftly marching past him and back into the bright corridor, Brigitte held the reel against her chest; "I had some pictures of my mother, Heidi and old classmates on my camera that I wanted to develop. It's too expensive to hop on a train to Berlin every weekend to see them, so I took pictures before I left. And if I can do it myself, why bother paying someone to develop my film for me."

"Oh," the perplexed expression still carried on Ed's face as he followed her down the hall, a little overwhelmed by her dump of information. He shut the door of the room they'd exited and before he could make his way back into the development room, Ed found himself face to face with a camera lens; Brigitte snapped a photograph of his puzzled expression.

"I wish I could make colour photographs," Brigitte turned the camera over in her hands, examining it carefully, "no one's going to believe me at school when I tell them I met a man with yellow eyes. But the light in here is bright enough the photograph should turn out at least."

Extending his gloved hands, Ed made the non-verbal request to examine at the camera. As Brigitte had done moments before, he turned it over in his hands.

"It's a AG Stuttgart Piccolette!" she announced proudly, "My mother and sister got it for me for my birthday."

Ed handed it back to her, "And the University is letting you use their equipment to develop your pictures?"

"One of the nuns helped arrange it for me," Brigitte nodded as she headed back into the dimmed light of the photography room, "I guess she's taking responsibility if I damage anything. And I'll get 20 lashes if I do; so I'm keeping everything as perfect as I can."

Ed raised his eyebrows at the comment, realizing he'd just found her doing something far more troublesome than developing film. Picking the reel up from the table Brigitte had placed it down on, he moved towards the final two door choices, "Which one does this belong in?"

"The one in front of you has equipment in it, the one on your right has the films," Setting her camera down upon the counter, Brigitte came over to join Edward, "you said you were looking for a film?" she pulled open the storage closet door for him.

"It's called Homunculus," Ed returned the film to the only empty hole in the shelves.

"I don't think it's here," Brigitte put her hands on her hips, "I looked at all of the titles before I watched one. I didn't see that name on any of them."

Ed gave a sigh and simply shut the door on the reels; Brigitte took a few startled steps backwards at his sudden discouragement. "It would have been 6 volumes, you couldn't have missed it," he turned and leaned up against the door, "maybe I should just go to the market instead. I'm just chasing ghosts."

"Sir?"

"Huh?" Edward gave a lethargic look towards her.

"Maybe if you knew who made the film, you could ask someone if they know who he is, and maybe find him?" Brigitte hopped up onto the table to rest her feet.

Ed gave a bit of a laugh at that, "Okay Brigitte, do you know who Robert Dinesen, or Reinert, or whatever his name is?" The long pause that ensued caused Edward to focus his gaze harder unto the girl upon the counter; he straightened himself slowly, "what?"

Brigitte crossed her legs as she sat upon the counter and smoothed out the front of her dress as she looked around the room. She chewed on the inside of her cheeks without a response.

"… What?"

"Mr. Reinert is co-founder of Emelka here in Munich. I shot a documentary with them last summer… um…" Brigitte glanced out the corners of her eyes to him.

Edward slowly moved himself away from the door, his eyes wide with amusement of the situation, "… where's the studio?"

"Well, they're on the other side of the city," Brigitte looked to the ceiling in thought, "and it's Saturday, they're closed."

Ed's hand promptly slapped over his face.

"Sir?"

"Huh?" Edward gave another disheartened look her way through his fingers.

Brigitte clasped her hands over her knee; her short blonde curls held tight up against her head, "The markets are busy on Saturdays. Do you want to help me develop my film instead?"

* * *

Using a slow hand, Havoc shut the office door behind himself. Glancing over to the desk, Mustang sat in the chair once again; his suspicious gaze asking Havoc more than enough questions, yet only one was spoken first; "And?"

"The girls bumped into Falman in the hall. Do you want them both in here when they're done?" Havoc raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Can they answer my questions?" Roy's quest for an answer had begun to sound with annoyance.

Havoc gave off a gradual nod, "Yes, they can."

"Did you get anything?" Mustang's eyes narrowed during his own question.

Havoc sat himself down in one of the chairs and glanced over to his superior, "Winry came in from Rizembool looking for Alphonse. She's suspecting that he's 'the boy' caught in the market explosion. They'll tell you otherwise," with a deep breath, the look in his eyes showed signs of becoming overwhelmed, "Sir, I don't know how… this… I mean for Edward to have…"

Slouching in his seat, Roy folded his arms emanating signs of deep frustration; his suspicious imagination running wild with all the loose ends, "I've gotten sick of being deceived and lied to by these children," his eye glanced over to the window as he swivelled in the chair, "my patience has run thin… hm?" both Mustang and Havoc looked over their shoulders to the door.

With her head peeking into the room, Sheska found herself startled into silence as her eyes stared into the interrogating expression of Mustang; whom she had not expected to see. The look of irritation in his face sent a wave of panic through her body as she gripped the door handle tighter. For some reason, the black eye patch always added to the intensity of his unpleasant moods.

"Come inside Sheska," Havoc's voice was anything but inviting.

"We were actually..." she glanced back out into the hall, "going to gather everyone and go for coffee," her voice spoke slowly with caution, "did you want to join us?" Her eyes watched as the serious tones surrounding both men never wavered.

"Take a seat in here," came Mustang's authoritative command; in complete disregard of her request.

More frightened by the comment than taken aback by it, Sheska glanced around the large curtain-drawn room, "Sure..." she again peeked back out into the hall, pulling her jacket tighter around herself, "… Winry!"

Though the holler was going to have the guise of telling Winry that she would be delayed, there was no disguising the alarming panic within her voice. It was Havoc's fist that slammed down onto the table in annoyance at the vocal warning Sheska had just called out, "SHESKA."

The replacement of frustration from the normal compassionate tone Havoc carried startled Sheska so much she jumped. Finding herself with little alternative but to accept the invitation, she joined the two men. Her shoes echoed in the silence as she moved cautiously through the room, finally sitting down in a chair across from Lt. Havoc. Her eyes shifted between the interrogating gazes bestowed upon her.

"Do you know why we're here?" The depth of Mustang's powerful tone made Sheska wish she could simply disappear from where she sat.

"No, Sir."

Again all eyes turned to the door as it opened once again. There Falman stood; instantly became alarmed by the atmosphere within the room. Wondering if he should simply retreat back into the hallway, he chose to address Sheska instead, "Sorry for my intrusion, but, do you know where Winry ran off to?"

Roy's expression grew darker, he'd thought that at some point before he'd last seen Edward, that a level of trust had been established which he could rely upon when dealing with these Rizembool families. He could not find any reason why they suddenly shunned him out, without any notification or explanation. Simple acknowledgement of his involvement with the situation would have sufficed days ago.

Sheska's eyes glanced to Mustang momentarily before back to Falman, "Did she say anything?"

"She said she needed to go to the washroom. But," Falman's eyes bounced around the three occupants, "the washroom is at the other end of the hall."

"Warrant Office Falman," Roy's voice rang out coldly, "I want that girl arrested." The only set of eyes that did not give the man a surprised reaction were Havoc's.

"Wh… what for!"

"She is hindering an investigation and has become a suspect as well. That case may no longer be under my department's supervision, but I still have the authority to bring suspects into custody," there was no nonsense about the tone, "the police can deal with her as they see fit."

Sheska's voice rang out in alarm; suddenly concerned by the implications of the second charge, "Wait a minute! She wasn't even in town when that happened."

Havoc gave a momentary glance to Mustang; looking to gauge the seriousness of his apprehension order. All doubt erased, Havoc addressed to the stunned officers, "the information she's provided me about her whereabouts the last week have been inconsistent, she could have been anywhere."

"You don't know that!" Sheska argued, her voice choking with panic, "you can't hand her over to the police, you don't know what they'd do to her!"

"She told me that she came in from Rush Valley, yet I clearly heard you place her in Rizembool a few moments earlier. Those locations are days apart and require Central to be a transfer station. Until we can confirm her whereabouts for the last week, we don't know anything for sure," Havoc's stern address to Sheska caused her to sink into the wooden chair.

"… How much did you hear of our conversation?"

The Lieutenant's eyes turned back over to Mustang, waiting for his next call, "Falman, go! Take Breda with you."

"Don't go!" Sheska shrieked back at Falman, but the door swung shut on her voice. Clenching her fists in her lap, Sheska's jaw tightened as she tried to subdue her nerves and emotions, "why can't you leave this alone? You were removed from the case; isn't it obvious that it's not involving you anymore."

Slowly Roy rose to his feet, unaided by his cane, "I had tried very hard; very hard to create a passage for those brother's to use at their own discretion. I'd hoped I had gained a mutual understanding with them at some point in time. I never expected their gratitude, I never asked for it either; it's not something I require. Up until now, I had no intention on intruding on their privacy if they wish to be left alone. I've known for a long time that if they achieved their goal, they would disappear," Havoc watched the Brig. General as he tightened his shoulders, "but right now, in this situation, I do not believe that any of us deserve to be treated as an obstacle. Have my actions not made it apparent numerous times that my agenda has always taken their well-being into consideration!"

Sheska's eyes glanced away from him; she looked down into her lap, "Sir, I don't think you quite understand…"

For Mustang, that was the wrong response, "Do you know what I don't understand? I don't understand why I've had to fight to get information on this boy; why I had to order a nonsensical arrest. I don't understand why, every time one of my officers places a phone call to someone who could let us help him, we are hung up on. I do not understand why critical people insist on lying to me and creating barriers to keep me out. I haven't a single shred of factual information on how he even exists; I may have my own theories, and they do nothing but create more questions," with each sentence, Mustang's tone of voice rose; his enunciation growing more precise with each step up, "I have little explanation for Alphonse's behaviour towards me. I am astounded that Edward has been a complete non-factor in the whole situation. I have a thousand more questions than I have answers because the doors I opened for them have slammed in my face," his hands came thundering down onto the desk, "Don't misunderstand how frustrated this has made me."

From the corner of his eye, Havoc watched as Sheska reached into the inside pocket of her coat. After a momentary pause she pulled out an open letter envelope. Getting to her feet slowly, she placed the envelope in between herself and the Lieutenant. She kept her head low; the tilt of her glasses used the reflection of the room's light to keep anyone from looking into her eyes. Her voice came off distant and withdrawn; the sound filling the room left a sinking feeling in Havoc's stomach.

"I'm sorry, I have to go now, am I excused?"

Havoc slid the envelope towards himself. The return address was enough; he pulled the two page letter out from the envelope; without opening it, he folded the papers in half once more, and slipped it into his chest pocket, "I think you can be excused."

Sheska's hand darted across the table, snatching back her empty envelope. Shoving it into a pocket she ran out the door; without a word to anyone, without turning back to look.

"Lieutenant Havoc," the firmness of Mustang's voice startled him to attention. His expression slowly mellowed while he pulled his black jacket on once more. With a straightening tug of his coat and firm grip on the cane, the officer who'd stopped feeling as though he was still on injury leave, headed towards the door, "it's 4:30. You have a ton of paperwork left on your desk. I hope you have it done by the time I come back tomorrow."

A sheepish grin came across Havoc's face as he gave a light laugh in relief of the whole situation, "I didn't have anywhere to be tonight, anyways."

**

* * *

**

**To Be Continued...**

**

* * *

****Author's Notes  
**  
R&R is lovely and appreciated!

Chapter 57 is a little Christmas adventure, it'll be out on Dec 24th (I'm almost done with it, since I wrote most of it before this one was finished, heh).

Havoc didn't take over ALL of Roy's job, just a part of it. Mustang wasn't replaced in his job - his duties were simply distributed among his most senior staff (IE: Hawkeye and Havoc).

Homunculus (6-part German silent film – 1916). Directed by Otto Rippert, written by Robert Dinesen (Reinert). Yes, it really exists.

Lya has nothing to do with Lyra – just so you're not confused.

**Chapter 55 Feedback**

I'm glad it was well received.

chibi-sherry - it's a good hate. Hope your finals are over :3

bOw-doWn-tO-KeiKO - Hmm... I am educated, but not in anything that has anything to do with Europe, WWI, or Hitler XD.

Zrana - Hi Zrana! :D feel free to IM my away message with proof reading if you feel inclined to do so.


	6. Father Christmas

**He Who Searches For Himself**

* * *

**Chapter 57 - Father's Christmas**

The hinges on the car door creaked open; the bitter cold doing very little for the health of the imperfect vehicle, let alone it's occupants. Ed's right boot vanished into the snow as he stepped his foot down to the cement, he remained sitting upon the cold seat of the car. His mind constantly in awe of the amounts that had fallen over the last week; it was like nothing he'd ever seen. He pulled the wool hat down tighter over his head.

Hohenheim glanced over to him as he opened the back car door, "You're going to be okay in the snow?" from the back seat, he handed Ed a wooden crutch.

Using the side of the car as an anchor, Ed pulled himself up onto his right leg; his tone harsh at the implication he was unable to care for himself, "We're only going up their walkway." Tucking the crutch under his left arm, Ed moved away from the car; Hohenheim shut the door behind him. Shivering within his heavily weighted coat, Ed followed his father up the snow-covered path to the house they'd been invited to for the evening. From what he'd seen of London thus far, the old brick house seemed to be one of the more aristocratic ones. He tried to sink into the scarf around his neck to keep the bitter winds from stinging his cheeks.

Hohenheim knocked firmly on the door twice. Before his hand was able to hit for the third and final knock, the door had swung open.

"Aunty! They're here!" the little girl who'd opened the door for them called back into the house before looking to Edward and Hohenheim once more, "come inside! It's bitter in the snow."

"Thank you, Diana," Hohenheim looked back to Ed, and motioned for him to follow. He moved as quickly as caution would allow him to do with his crutch in the blowing snow; last thing he wanted to do was fall over again. Entering the house, he was instantly hit by the brightness of the entire building; it made the house feel warmer than the heat of the oven and fireplace had actually created. Ed gave his head a shake to get the snow off his hat and shoulders. Hohenheim reached out and plucked the hat from his head the moment he stopped.

With her hair done in brown spiral curls, a woman rushed down the hall towards the guests within her house, "I'm so glad you came, I was worried the weather would keep you home." The woman pulled up her holiday Victorian dress as she pushed shoes aside that cluttered her hallway, "please Edward, have a seat on the stairs so you can unbundled yourself."

Awkwardly making his way around the cluttered hall, Ed moved to the staircase that lead up to the second floor, "Sorry, my shoe is going to leave tracks on your carpet," he leaned the crutch up against the wall and gripped his left hand on the stair railing as he slowly sat down.

"Don't worry about it, the children spilt juice on my carpet earlier in the day. Snow and soil are nothing," the lady of the house adjusted his crutch against the wall to prevent it from tipping.

Ed unwrapped the scarf from around his neck as the woman reached over to help him with his coat.

"I'm alright."

"You're our guest, I can help you with your coat."

Ed reluctantly gave into her assistance and the woman hung his jacket up in the closet while he undid the buckle on his boot. Hohenheim was the one who took the boot from the bottom of the stairs and placed it among the others. Again reaching for the railing, Ed wrinkled his face as he pulled himself to his only good leg while glancing down to make sure the pin still kept his other pant leg rolled up. Steadying himself with the wall for support he looked up the stairs while taking his crutch once more; the young faces of two little girls, one far younger than the other, and their dolls stared back at him from above. Their season-appropriate red and green plaid dresses blending into each other as they huddled together.

"Diana, come down here!" Ed's attention was quickly snatched by the distinct 'Mother' tone.

The one who'd opened the door for them earlier left her companion, ran down the stairs and stood before the woman, "Aunty?"

"Would you show these men to the common room?" the woman addressed as 'Aunty' clasped her hands as the little girl nodded in acceptance of her mission.

Hohenheim motioned for Ed to start moving, and he began to follow. Unable to protest once more, his hostess straightened his vest and re-folded his collar before she allowed Ed to go any farther. It was not more than twenty steps when the little girl made a sharp turn and lead the pair through a set of white, gold-handled doors. As swiftly as he could, Ed caught up with Hohenheim before the pair entered the room.

"Hohenheim!" a man's bright voice greeted them, "you got through the weather." The man placed his pipe down in the tray and he stood up to shake hands.

Standing back near the closing doors, Ed's eyes traveled around the room. Instantly drawn in by the huge decorated spruce tree had been set up in front of the window; he noted the mountain of tightly wrapped presents lying beneath it as well as the angel upon the highest peak. He's been warned about the strange custom, but thought it was an odd sight nonetheless. He took note of the perfectly dressed people sitting on the couches encircling an elegant glass coffee table, oversized paintings framed with a shining silver colour hung on the wall, the orange crackling fireplace lived behind the protective screen and the red stockings hung above it. The puzzling green-leaved decorations adorned various corners and edges of the room; he concluded the pine smell was because the tree was only a few days old.

"Edward, you came too. I'm glad you were feeling well enough to join us."

Ed glanced up at the man, his eyes carrying a displaced look, "I was told I had to come." Though his response was blunt; it did not seem to faze anyone. As he shifted his weight upon the crutch, Ed kept his vision trained with curiosity on the man whose eyes marvelled upon him.

"Edward, this is Charles Wilson," Hohenheim introduced the companion.

With a smirk, the trim gentleman looked back to Ed's father, "Your boy gotten a fair bit of his colour back into his complexion. That's good to see."

Hohenheim gave a nod at that and moved to sit down, "It's good indeed. And it's good to see you again Charles, you've been busy off on duty the last couple months."

"Yes, and let me tell you words cannot express how glad I am that I had Christmas leave," the man gave a quick look back at Edward, "don't stand there young man, take a seat. Julie, sit like a lady so Edward can have a spot on the chesterfield."

"Sorry," the young teenager pulled her feet off the couch; smoothing her extravagant green patterned dress out, she sat herself down perfectly at the end of the couch. Moving himself over the spot made available, Ed let himself fall back into the soft cushions – it was far easier than trying to gracefully sit down. Putting his crutch on the ground, his eyes first glanced to the young man sitting on his right side, possibly a few years older than himself. Without provocation, he gave Ed a simple nod of welcome. Slowly returning the gesture, he looked back over to the girl; who'd now shifted from her perfect position to lean against the arm of the sofa. He watched her for a moment, the tight blonde curls matched how the lady at the door had her hair styled; only for this girl, an extravagant bow was tied into the back of her hair. She glanced his way momentarily and Ed felt like he'd caught her blue eyes, but it never felt like she acknowledged his presence.

"Edward," the man with the last name of Wilson asked for his attention, "this is Julie and Thomas." He motioned to the people who graced Ed's sides; he then began to go around in circle of the men, women and children enjoying the entrées and wine upon the coffee table, "this is their father, Mr. Hyland, their mother greeted you at the door. This young man is Randolph, and I believe you met his older sister Diana already," he motioned to the two children now sharing a space upon the facing couch, "And this is their father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Churchill."

Ed gave a nod to each person within the room, he paused his traveling glance when he arrived at Mrs. Churchill, "I never got to thank you for the quilt."

"Oh goodness, you don't need to do that," her bright smile reflected around the room, "I've made quilts for the children in the hospital before when winter season set in. The extra one was no problem; I thought you'd like something a little more enjoyable than those white sheets."

"Since we had to leave the hospital, it's become an ornament for my den," Hohenheim gave a bemused smile the Churchill's way, "he sits on it if the floor's cold, he wraps himself up in it when he's reading the paper in the morning, the rest of the time he's sound asleep in it on my sofa."

Ed's hand came up to his forehead as he glared bullets back to Hohenheim, sinking in the cushions a little. The adults within the room burst into laughter at Ed's obvious disapproval of the story Hohenheim had just told.

"You embarrassed him Hohenheim! For shame," one of the voices laughed.

A grossly unimpressed look sat on Ed's face as he let the laughter continue around him knowing that if he even raised his voice, he'd give away his embarrassment further. His gaze drifted curiously back to Julie as she giggled; she never looked his way, simply living in her own world as she stared at the beige sofa arm.

It was Mr. Wilson's voice that finally ended the ruckus, "Winston, I've been meaning to ask, how have your dealings with Lloyd been going?"

"Bah," Churchill sat back in his spot, "the man is tied, seems I have too many political enemies in the Conservatives to do anything right now. He promises to try and weave some magic for me once the new government is settled, I look forward to when he does."

"The change of government is good though," Hohenheim piped into the conversation, "perhaps the change can bring an end to this war sooner."

"Cheers to that."

Ed once again looked over to Julie sitting silently on his left; she continued to stare off into space without concern for what she was looking at. Something about her had his curiously, but he could not place what exactly; he suspected it had something to do with her apparent disinterest in what was going on. The noise of the adults became background static. Attentions were grabbed however when Ms. Hyland's voice came from the kitchen, "Julie, would you give me a hand in here please."

"There's something on the floor Julie, watch your step," came her older brother's voice from Ed's opposite side.

Ed reached down to move his crutch, "I'll move it."

"It's okay," it was the first time she'd shared her voice since Ed had gotten there; he watched her whisk out of the room. He tilted his head, confused by how oddly she moved, barely picking her feet up from the floor.

"She's blind," it was Thomas whose low voice had spoken up and caught Ed's attention, "if that's what you were wondering about. You kept looking at her."

Ed's expression grew concerned, "But her eyes, she looked at me; they were fine."

Thomas shook his head, "She blinks, she cries, she looks around, but she doesn't see anything. A few years ago she became quite sick, an infection spread, and she lost her sight," he watched as Ed looked towards the exit leading to the kitchen, "but this is her house, she knows where everything is; she's really sharp that way. Mother always lets her help in the kitchen." Though he hesitated momentarily in doing so, Thomas gave Ed a backhanded slap where the empty sleeve hung at his right shoulder to grab his attention, "Hey, Churchill's kids took off upstairs, and politics bores me to tears. We can go to the kitchen and be taste testers for my mother's cooking. Worst that can happen is she'll put us to work and we can sample the stuff as we go."

Ed gave him a puzzled eye, confused by the sudden invite, "I'll be in the way," it was a comment of truth he did not normally to admit to.

"No more in the way than Julie. Come on, before your father turns you into conversation fodder again."

That was enough for Ed; the boys announced their exiting intentions to the remainder of the guests.

* * *

"Louise this was excellent! How am I supposed to top this next Christmas Eve?" Mrs. Churchill dropped her napkin over her finished plate.

"Lots of coffee Clementine, lots of coffee," Mrs. Hyland gave a crooked grin in response.

A few of the guests laughed as they sat around two large oak tables that had been pushed together. What was left of Christmas dinner and all it's trimmings was now simply a mess that would become leftovers for the next several days. All the party members, from ages two to however old Ed thought Hohenheim might be, sat around the table, passing plates to Mrs. Hyland as she collected them. One by one, the elders at the table would excuse themselves to the living room once more.

Mrs. Hyland smiled down at Edward as she took the plate from him, "Are you sure you're finished, dear?"

Ed gave an affirmative nod and a thank-you as she took his plate. While doing so, he did not catch the look Hohenheim gave Wilson as he excused himself from the table.

"Edward, would you come upstairs with me please?" Mr. Wilson pushed up from his seat.

Somewhat caught off guard by the request, Ed replied affirmatively. Picking his crutch up from the floor, he stood himself up and followed the man out of the room. Scaling the stairs twice as fast as Ed managed, Charles waited at the top and watched Edward make his assent.

"Now then, I think she said… oh that's right. We're going into the Hyland's study, come along."

Growing more perplexed as he made his way up the stairs and down the long unlit hall, Ed followed the man into the study. Wilson turned on the lamp while Ed gave the door a push to close it after he'd come in. The room, like everything else in the house, was large and neatly decorated; everything from the desk to bookcases to the coat rack was a dark oak. A few wooden chairs sat in front of the study desk; though Ed thought that if he chose to sat down, he'd sit on the maroon cushioned seats lining the door's wall.

Leaning up against the desk within the weak light, Wilson looked questioningly at Edward, "You don't remember who I am do you?"

Ed turned his attention around and looked at the man, he narrowed his gaze in thought of the question.

"I visited you a few times around the end of September, early October while you were in the hospital. I wasn't sure if you'd remember that or not," the man's sombre voice echoed within the room.

Slouching against his crutch, Ed's eyes looked away from the man as if to feign an interest elsewhere within the room, "I saw a lot of people in that hospital, I can't remember everyone."

"I didn't think you did. It's not your fault, don't put on such a face," the man encouraged Ed to drop his act and offered a bit of additional information to shed some light on his presence, "I worked at St. Mary's Medical School before the war started, I'm looking to go back when this war is over."

"Wait, did _he_ put you up to this?" his voice suddenly snapped and the expression upon Ed's face soured into his scowl, "I'm besieged by doctors everywhere I go. This is ridiculous."

Wilson laughed at the sudden vicious life that showed up in Ed, "Yes, I can imagine you're pretty tired of seeing us by now."

His expression made it clear he was not entertained by the comments.

Giving a sigh, the man turned and stepped behind the desk. He produced an extra long black case, which he put up onto the desk, followed by a tote bag. Ed analyzed the man's motions carefully as he moved, unzipping the bag.

"Has your cough cleared? You haven't had any problems in the last few weeks?"

"For the _thousandth _time NO. I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself to everyone I'm feeling fine, and I have been fine all month," Ed raised his voice as he snapped back; his fierce expression cutting into the man before him.

Looking up from his baggage, Charles raised an eyebrow unfazed by his behaviour; "Your father says you've started to make a embarrassing scene whenever the doctors come to check up on you."

"I told that old man that I don't need to see those doctors any more. I'm really sick of his voice and how he insists he knows what's best for me," the option for Ed to belt out the last word and storm out of the room was a non factor; since it would take too long for him to open and close the door, let alone get down the hall and stairs.

Charles light laughter didn't help Ed's sudden foul mood, "You sound just like Thomas use to some days, but I knew his dad would let me box his ears for that. Trust me, I have no problem dealing with upstart teenagers. Why don't you have a seat?"

Ed glanced behind where he stood, the firm maroon cushions attached to square sectionals stretched from the coat rack next to the door all the way to the wall. He figured they must get pulled out as seating during office meetings, as opposed to the hard chairs. Turning forward again, he saw Mr. Wilson snap stethoscope ends around his neck. With the full motion of his arm, he threw the crutch to the floor in some immature fit of frustration and fell backwards into the cushions; he winced sharply when his head hit the wall unintentionally.

Grabbing a wooden chair from in front of the desk, Charles pulled it over to his cranky adversary, "How do you sleep?"

"Just fine," came the flat response.

"I doubt that," the man sat down, "I meant do you sleep on your stomach, your side, or your back?"

After a momentary pause to consider the question, Ed narrowed his eyes, "On my back," was the cautious reply.

At that, the man reached down, grabbed Ed at his ankle and swung his leg up onto the length of cushions. Ed started to straighten up as he was suddenly spun to the side, "What are you-" he barely had time to gasp before Wilson's hand found his neck and pushed him back down onto the cushions. Ed's own left hand found it's way to his neck after the man had walked away. He watched, startled and wide eyed, as Wilson made his way back to the desk.

"Lay there for a few minutes," Wilson sat himself down in the large leather backed desk chair and opened up a coiled book which he began jotting in.

Ed's eyes continued to watch the man with definite concern, his hand coming to his mouth as he cleared his throat. Finally giving up on his vigilance, Ed turned his attention to the ceiling, which was just as un-entertaining as everything else. He lost track of time as his mind struggled to remain focused; Ed subconsciously fought with himself to keep from coughing. He hated laying on his back for just that reason.

From the corner of his eye he caught movement; Ed jumped in surprise, startled by Wilson's sudden reappearance at the chair next to him. The man reached out and pulled Ed's tie off of his neck. Rubbing his hand over his face Ed gave off a disgruntled sigh realizing he simply did not have the energy to fight with the man; he knew the routine and undid the top three buttons of his shirt.

"You're a better sport than I thought," he put the cold end of the stethoscope end under his shirt; Ed's head rolled away so he could stare at the wall, "now tell me Edward, do you want to hear what I'm listening to or can you feel that every time you try to inhale?"

Ed's eyes tightened as he stared at the wall, barking 'shut up' or any other foul two-word combination was a waste of breath.

Deciding that he'd spent enough time invading Ed's heavily guarded bubble of privacy, Wilson stood up and unhooked the stethoscope from his neck, "That will clear up. Get a few more pillows so you're not flat on your back when you sleep; that should stop your cough. Once you're able to relax, it will do your body a wonder of good. Drink a lot of water as well, as hot as you like. The warmth is much more soothing. If you're still having problems sleeping, take a shot of brandy, it'll put you out."

Ed's eyes shot back over to him as he slowly sat up, somewhat concerned by the last statement. He watched the man walk back to the desk; from within the tote bag he tossed a dark fabric at him. Catching it up, Ed turned it over in his lap to figure out what he'd been handed.

"They're shorts. Put them on, I want to look at what's left of your leg. I'll be right back," and as he walked out of the room, the good doctor picked up the crutch laying carelessly in the middle of the floor, tucked it under his arm, and promptly exited.

Ed watched the door shut behind Wilson, his mouth hanging partially open as he tried to understand what this man thought he was doing by running away with his crutch.

The gathering of families collectively looked up from their tea as Wilson re-entered the room. The adults waited for Hohenheim to ask the question that had obviously kept him anti-social since the Doctor had left with his son. It was Churchill who asked the question Hohenheim could not.

"So?"

"He'll be fine after a few nights of good rest. He's exhausted; you can see it on him clear as day if it's not evident in his behaviour," Wilson rolled his eyes as he walked around the congregation to an open chair, "There's still fluid in his lungs, that's what's not letting him sleep," he sat down in an open chair and looked to Hohenheim, "give him a few extra pillows, cushions and what not to prop himself up on while he sleeps. It'll keep the fluid from moving up and causing the irritation; he'll be able to get some decent rest once he stops coughing. When his body's not so tired, he'll be far better able to take care of himself; perhaps his disposition will brighten a little. I can't prescribe much more than what's been done for him already," picking up his pipe from the table, Wilson flicked a match into it, "you can take that look off your face now, it's been making everyone around you nervous."

Hohenheim's eyes widened slightly by the comment before he found himself suffering through the onset of laughter in relief of the stress, "Thank you."

Churchill gave Hohenheim a firm pat on his shoulder as he laughed along side, "I told you, you were worrying too much. He'd be in much dire straights if he'd relapsed."

"Make sure he eats, shove it down his throat if he's being stubborn about it. He didn't finish everything at dinner and he looks quite thin; that was something that bothered me," Wilson took a deep inhale from his pipe, "He's a foul little bugger, how do you put up with him? If he were my son I would have boxed his ears or given him a good slap in the face for his behaviour. I can see why he's been frustrating you."

Hohenheim shook his head at the comment, "That's not how I do things Charles."

"Well now that's interesting; he was very pleasant in the kitchen before dinner," Mrs. Hyland re-crossed her legs, having kept silent for most of the conversation she'd suddenly drawing the two men's attention, "he was very charming helping Julie out. I needed the potatoes peeled and I had no intention of letting her handle a knife like that. Thomas volunteered the boy's services but Edward couldn't do it with just one hand, so Julie sat on his lap and handled the potatoes while he peeled them. He was very well mannered and good about the whole thing," she gave the men a doubtful look as she questioned the sincerity of their complaint against Ed.

Hohenheim fell silent at that for a moment, his eyes countered Louise as if to determine the validity of her statement. Her honest eyes looked back at him, in return questioning his assessment of Ed. He finally gave a hefty exhale and sank back into the couch once more, "That's… reassuring."

Wilson once again put his pipe back down on the table and stood up from his seat, "I've given him enough time. We'll see how this goes over." Walking around the gathering, Wilson stopped a few moments after having passed Hohenheim, "He needs to know how sick he was in that hospital, Hohenheim. He obviously doesn't remember or he wouldn't behave this poorly."

"I'll find an appropriate time talk to him Charles," Hohenheim wondered if his reassuring voice worked on everyone but himself.

Wilson continued to examine him for any further reaction; well aware that everyone in that room had told cranky boy's father the exact same thing, and each one had been given the same response. With an unimpressed sigh, he continued on his journey back up to the study. Moving up the stairs once more and back into the room where he'd exited minutes before, Wilson looked down to see if Ed had complied with the request.

As much as he wished he could, Ed's desire to fold his arms in protest was something he was unable to do. But having done as he'd been told, he sat in the black cotton shorts with his white dress shirt and ponytail as he stared off bitterly into the corner.

Charles grinned and once again sat down in the seat before Ed, "That jolly good, it healed over better than I thought it would," he ran his fingers over the most prominent jagged scar line cutting across the bottom of Ed's stumped left leg. Ed flinched in his place at the touch and Charles looked glanced up to the boy's invaded expression.

"Sorry, is it sensitive?"

"Your hand is cold," Ed gave out under his breath as he turned his head away again.

The smile fell back upon Wilson's face and he stood up and re-approached the desk. Placing the tote bag back down on the floor, the doctor opened the black case upon the desk, "This should be good enough for now."

Looking out of the corner of his eye, Ed watched the man produced a wooden leg from within the case. Giving the man his full attention, he turned himself to sit square on the cushion while Wilson moved back to Edward.

"It should do you for now, until you find something more to your liking," Wilson held the contraption in his hands for Ed's suddenly silent expression to look at, "Prosthetics is not my specialty, but I had an old working buddy give me a hand in getting this; I took the measurements some time ago, so you better not have grown," Wilson was unaware that his comments should have provoked a violent response, yet Ed sat silent, "The ankle has a fairly good range of motion, the artificial tendons inside allow for the toes to push back; that'll help you walk easier. The knee joint is quite durable from what I was told; I don't suggest you do much running or pounding up and down the stairs though," sitting back down on the chair, the leg across his lap, he watched Ed continue to find himself at a loss for something to say.

"Do you want to try it out?" his eyes peered into Edward's humbled expression. Finally letting the mix of emotions fade away; Ed's gave recognition to Wilson's request.

"I can't afford something like that, I shouldn't," even if he thought for a moment he wanted to stand square on two legs, he could never bring himself to ask the man downstairs...

Grabbing him under his arm, Wilson pulled Ed off his seat to a standing position. With the sudden imbalance he felt from the swift motion, Ed instinctively gripped tightly upon the man's shoulder to keep from falling. The doctor remained crouched over, steadying the leg upright on the ground. Giving Ed a slap on his left hip, he barked out a request, "Step down."

At the command, Ed shifted his unbalanced weight and stepped down with his left side; he stopped without toppling over, suddenly square to the world. It was the first time since he'd first gotten out of the hospital bed that he'd been able to do such a thing. He looked down quickly at the casing, engulfing much of what remained of his left thigh; it seemed so crude from what he was use to, yet it did not bother him as much as it may have under other circumstances. As if playing with a new toy, Ed rolled through the motions of his kneecap, ankle and toes; the back of his mind thought how odd it felt to have his leg move through motion-control and not at the command of his own body. Unable to choose anything appropriate to say, he found himself saying nothing instead.

"That is yours by the way," Wilson said, standing himself up straight. He looked down to Edward who finally opened his mouth to speak, but the man stopped him, "Your father wanted to give that to you, but he was concerned you'd reject it if it came from him," the comment stopped Ed from challenging. His eyes fell before his head drooped; he glanced to the leg once more as he rolled through the ankle. He took a sharp inhale and clenched his fist. Wilson's voice caught him once again, "It's the wrong time of year for you to act as though you're an ungrateful child."

"Everyone in this city keeps referring to me as a child. I keep telling you I'm not," Ed's voice contained no bite; his mind was too distracted.

"You are always someone's child, no matter how old you are or how far away they are. I am twice your age, and I will always be my mother and father's child," Wilson challenged Ed's comment. The fall of Ed's defensive posture was as good as he could have expected, "and your father wishes you a Merry Christmas."

Ed shut his eyes as his shoulders fell; he took a deep breath in through his nose to re-organize his train of thought, and exhaled just as slowly before opening his eyes again, "I wish he wouldn't…"

Wilson narrowed his eyes at the response. He moved back to the wooden chair he'd claimed as his own, and sat down once more, "Have a seat for a few minutes." He glanced back up to Ed who moved cautiously at the request. Wilson waited for him to follow the cue.

* * *

Staring absently across the room, Ed sat upon the floor. Propped up against the couch; his legs were outstretched beneath the coffee table. As if his mind were no longer in the presence of the room, his head sat tilted upon his neck as his gaze burned within the crackling fireplace. Hanging untied around his shoulders, a few ends of Ed's blonde hair dangled in the collar of his shirt; only three quarters buttoned up.

Hohenheim stood at the side of the couch, within Ed's peripheral vision. The longer he stood silent in place, the more he grew concerned at the lack of a response to his presence. He'd initially become concerned while the night wore on at the Hyland residence. He had no idea what to make of Ed's subdued reaction to the leg; was it a good or a bad thing. Ed had remained distant offering very little to the conversations all evening; his interest seemed elsewhere. Perhaps the most startling occurrence that night was his request to go home around ten o'clock; though Hohenheim did not ask for a reason, Ed provided that he felt tired.

And since the moment he claimed his place within the den, Ed sat upon the floor as devoid of existence as the rag dolls on a child's shelf. Finally, bending over, Hohenheim placed the teacup in front of his son. It was that action which finally caught Ed's attention; he brought a hand up to rub his eye.

"Hot water seems sort of plain, I thought you'd like tea instead."

Ed's eyes glanced at the teacup as he shifted in place but gave no reply, his emptied expression ever-present.

"Don't sleep on my couch tonight either," Hohenheim stepped back from the table, "you can walk yourself upstairs to bed."

"I don't want your charity, old man."

It was a scripted line that he'd been hearing far too often over the last month and a bit. There was a scripted accompanying reply that Hohenheim did not give today; something in hollowness of Ed's voice did not provoke it. He simply turned and started towards the hallway.

"Hey."

It wasn't so much the call that stopped Hohenheim, but rather the absence of tone that caught his attention. He waited in the late night for Edward to speak up once more, and they let the silence drag on until he was ready to speak again.

"Don't think that anything you'll ever do for me will make me forgive you."

Dropping his head slightly as he stood, Hohenheim slid his hands in his pockets, "I wouldn't expect you to," continuing to intrude upon the aura of the room, he waited to see if more would come of the conversation. The clock made the loudest statement, as it began its twelve chimes for the new day. Having turned once more to exit the uncomfortable presence, Hohenheim kept an unfazed voice as the clock rang out, "Make sure you get to bed soon."

"Wait..."

Once again stopping before he could leave the room, Hohenheim waited for whatever comment would slap him next. By the time the echo of the final chime ceased; Ed's voice took its place.

"Your friends are interesting people," his voice trailed off as Hohenheim turned over his shoulder at the statement, "Mrs. Hyland is a good cook, Mr. Churchill's was entertaining at dinner, I hope Julie is able to be successful," he straightened his head upon his shoulders while he spoke, "I couldn't remember Mr. Wilson, I think he figured that out on his own."

"You weren't doing well last time he'd seen you."

"After he gave me the leg, he told me some of what went on in the hospital."

"That…" Hohenheim's brow rose in sudden concern at the statement, "What did he tell you?"

The silence fell back upon the room as Hohenheim stood in-wait for a response. The light from the fireplace flickered its shadows around the room.

"Edward?"

"Sorry, I've been nothing but a problem for you."

Turning back into the room, Hohenheim moved over to Ed. He gave the coffee table a push out of the way before grabbing Ed under his arm; using only the one hand, he pulled the boy to his feet. Standing in front of him, he straightened the shirt at Ed's shoulders and collar. Hohenheim turned him around, pulling the hair tie out of his own hair as he did so. And though Ed's head tipped forward with a downcast expression, his father straightened his posture and pulled the blonde hair up into a ponytail for him, "you haven't been a problem."

All Ed could do was give a weak scoff at the comment.

Turning him back to face forward again, Hohenheim's hands came to rest on Ed's shoulders; he would find the strength to discuss the issue another day when they both felt better, "I think you should get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning." the sigh Ed gave was as good as an acceptance; though Hohenheim had been referring to more than just his physical condition.

"If you sleep the night through, maybe Santa Clause will leave you a present."

"Is there something wrong with the present I already got?" his own puzzled comment on foreign holiday finally brought Ed out of whatever disillusioned state he'd locked himself up in; as he spoke, he did not notice the weight that lifted off of his father's shoulders. "That has to be the stupidest story I've ever heard. Big fat man, chimneys, sack of gifts; isn't this a religious holiday? Is the fat-man supposed to have something to do with religion?"

Not wanting to break the new flow of the conversation, Hohenheim took no time to adjust within the transition, "I don't believe so. But I haven't asked anyone; I don't think either of us should," a grin crossed his face at the thought of people's reactions.

"We'd sound pretty stupid, wouldn't we?"

"Most likely."

_Merry Christmas 1916 & 2004_

**

* * *

****To Be Continued...**

**

* * *

****Author's Notes  
**  
As always, R&R is welcome and loved.

Chapter 58 will go back on track; this is a special chapter.

I'm running with the assumption that the Christmas holiday does not exist in the front side of the gate.

Ed refers to Hohenheim as "Oyaji" (best translated to "old man" in his context) in the latter half of the TV series, as opposed to any proper title like 'Dad' or 'Father'. For this chapter, Ed hasn't accepted the man as his father, and he makes it evident in how he addresses him.

Diana calls Louise Hyland "Aunty", but she's not really her aunt, just the family friend whom the children refer to as Aunt. The Hylands are not an actual family in our world.

**Chapter 56 Feedback**

I'm glad my depiction of Roy is going over well, I'm always a little concerned about how portray him. Seems I'm doing alright.


	7. Violation of Soul

**He Who Searches For Himself**

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* * *

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"We told Al for a while that Ed was in Central, but we eventually told him what happened; you know the rest (sorry about crying on the phone). Al was really upset with us; I would have been too. I think we lived in denial that Ed would go that far; and we didn't want to admit anything to Al since we couldn't accept it ourselves. Admitting that Ed had died felt sort of like admitting Al wasn't human for all those years. If Al at least thought Ed was alive, things were somehow better."

**Chapter 58 – Violation of Soul**

Hohenheim's eyes glanced up from his paperwork; it was odd at quarter after ten to have anyone knock on his office door. Pausing, he wondering if he'd been hearing things, perhaps it was meant for someone else in the hall. But when the second knock came, he called out.

"It's open."

Curiously, the door did not open right away. Calling out the statement again while putting the dip pen into its holster, Hohenheim watched the door open and a pair of blue eyes poke into the room.

"I think I have the wrong room," the young lady stood half way beyond the door, her overall style blue and green plaid dress and white blouse catching the puzzled attention of Hohenheim. With more of an amused curiosity than anything else, he decided to entertain his guest.

"Who were you looking for young lady, perhaps I can point you in the right direction," he folded his arms on the desk, relaxing for the moment.

Stepping into the room a little farther, Hohenheim eyed the oversized black shoulder bag weighing her left shoulder down. The tentative voice replied, "Edward Elric, sir. I was told I could find him here."

Hohenheim raised his brow, "Were you? And who told you this?"

"He did himself, sir," the eyes glanced around the room; it became obvious her curiosity was getting the better of her.

Hohenheim muttered something under his breath about his son's attempt to overrun his office before addressing the girl once more, "Well unfortunately you won't find him here today. Perhaps I can pass along a message?"

As if the question never existed, the girl's attention returned to focusing on Hohenheim, "Who are you anyways?"

Stuck between being impressed by her straightforward nature, and unimpressed with her abrupt line of speech, Hohenheim replied cautiously, "I'm Edward's Father."

"Are you!" the girl's expression lifted and her eyes grew bright, "that's a relief, I was worried I'd stumbled somewhere completely off track."

Hohenheim leaned back in his chair; an obvious look of confusion over the whole situation grew on his face. The expression was pushed aside as the girl approached his desk, offering her hand to shake.

"My name's Brigitte Schittenhelm, I'm a friend of your son's."

The only two things Hohenheim could think of were: 'since when?' and 'shouldn't you be in school?' Neither option graced his lips as he shook the delicate hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you Brigitte. I'm sorry you came all the way out here to find he wasn't around."

With the confidence of someone who seemed to know all, she gave a shrug and smiled back at him sweetly, "Oh I have a good idea where he is today. I was just hoping to catch him before he left, that's all."

"Really?" Hohenheim figured the opportunity was as good as any to find out where his son had vanished to this morning, since neither of them had said so much as 'hello' to each other since Friday night, "and where do you think you'll find him today?"

"Emelka," she gave a firm nod, "he went looking for someone."

Hohenheim's hand came slowly to his chin as he leaned forward in the desk, "Who is he looking for?"

With her sudden display of confidence, Brigitte folded her arms, "One of the owners, Robert Reinert. Nice man, kind of weird, but he's nice enough."

As she spoke, Hohenheim interlaced his fingers and his elbows came to rest on the desk. The look in his eyes distanced himself from the room while the pleasant demeanour he'd entertained Brigitte with washed away. Upon addressing him once more, Hohenheim refocused.

"Sir?"

The elder man turned her way, "Yes?"

Narrowing an eye at him, Brigitte made it known by her expression that she'd caught some of the look on Hohenheim's face moments earlier. Though she'd unknowingly misinterpreted it, Brigitte questioned him anyways, "Are you mad at Edward?"

Hohenheim raised an eyebrow to her question, "Why do you ask?"

"I think he thinks you are. Well, actually, I know he thinks you are," clasping her hands behind her back she rocked on her toes, "he told me so."

It took a moment for Hohenheim to think over her comment before slowly sitting back in his chair, "Oh…" a bemused look crossed his face, "Does he really? Good. He can think that I'm mad at him all he likes, it'll be a nice change." Hohenheim's reaction shifted as he noticed the troubled look on the young lady's face, "Don't worry Brigitte, I know why he thinks I'm upset with him."

"You're not mad at him then?"

"I'm unimpressed with him," Hohenheim shook his head, the amused look still lingering in his eyes, "how on earth do you know Edward?"

Brigitte patted the hefty bag on her shoulders proudly, "He helped me develop my pictures!"

"… He knows how to develop pictures?" his face perplexed by the statement.

The young lady nodded her head with enthusiasm, "He does now."

Taking his pen again from the holster, Hohenheim tapped it on the edge of the desk; his head shook slightly, running the statement over in his head a few times, "Okay." He gave a light laugh before looking to Brigitte once more, a lingering thought hanging over him, "Dear, shouldn't you be in school?"

"No, it's lunch hour," she smiled at him sweetly and remaining unfazed as she watched the man give a doubting eye at the clock, "but lunch is over right away, so I should get going."

Giving a slow nod of cautious approval, Hohenheim told Brigitte to be on her way before she became 'late' for something. Even before his door had been shut, the telephone rang.

* * *

From the back seat of the car he rode in, Al's eyes kept a daydreaming look on the photograph sitting in his lap. His mind creating a life for each of the five faces captured within that moment of time, including his own. Al's fingers had never touched the glossy surface; he constantly handled it with precision at its edges. He stored it in the inside pocket of the blue windbreaker Mitchell had given him, so it would never fall out. His eyes glanced out the window, noting the building where parliament gathered regularly; what was once Central Headquarters had been divided between politics and military.

Upon the man's approach to the now idle car, Al tucked the photograph away in the envelope, slid it back into his coat and did the zipper half way. The door on his opposite side opened up as the Prime Minister entered; his breathing sounding exhausted as he came to rest in the seat.

"I swear, I literally had to run away from those beasts. What time is it?"

"Quarter after five, sir," announced the car driver.

With the firm wave of his hand Mitchell barked, "Well don't just sit here, get going!"

Al watched the tired man from the corner of his eyes. Mitchell slouched in his seat; hand over his face, trying to subdue his apparent frustration and exhaustion. Al turned to look out the window silently once again, though his interest elsewhere was soon interrupted.

"Alphonse?" Mitchell spoke to gain the young man's attention, "removing stitches does not hurt. Don't look so forlorn." Al grinned sheepishly at the misinterpretation of the look on his face; it was not what he'd been concerning himself with. The night before, Mitchell had encouraged Al to join them at the hospital to have his final few stitches removed and be checked up on once more. Mitchell believed it would be far more efficient to have Al join him while he saw his wife in the hospital; the doctors would be on hand to properly concern themselves with Alphonse – rather than calling them out to his estate.

"Thank you for helping me set up a room for our new child yesterday," Mitchell tried his best to distract Al from whatever he was concerning himself with; obvious it was making him apprehensive and nervous, "I wasn't sure if the papers I'll be signing today will allow me to take her home right away or not, but at least the room will be ready when she does arrive. It will be good for her to have someone younger in the house to talk with. A house full of stiff adults and a baby is somewhat daunting."

Al gave a nervous laugh at the statement, "I've done alright."

Mitchell narrowed his eyes at him with a playful tease, "Yes, but I don't think she'll sit there all day reading my alchemy books so intently like you did."

Continuing his sheepish grin, Al momentarily thought of all the knowledge he'd begun to acquire in the last day; far more than he'd anticipated with Izumi since she believed in training the body along with the mind. Al turned his attention forward once again; his hands firmly in his lap, summoning courage.

"My wife wants to meet you too," Mitchell's voice caught Alphonse's ear once more, "I've talked to her about you a few times, she's very interested in knowing about you and your Mother."

Al glanced away at the thought of Izumi; an ever present puzzle in his mind. To keep himself from being a complete ball of misery for the entire car ride, he stepped into the conversation, "Is your wife still doing alright?"

It was that comment that brought a sombre look into Mitchell's eyes; he brushed his hair away, "The emergency from the other night; as much as she tries, my wife cannot stop the deterioration of her legs. It's been causing her a great deal of pain lately. I tried to convince her that amputation will stop the spread of the disease and ease her pain, but she's been so very stubborn about the whole ordeal. She says she'll to stand on two feet again. I'm not sure if that's a trait I should slap her for, or applaud her for."

Al watched Mitchell's expression, a tired look in his eyes as the man spoke of his wife; the experience seemed exhausting for him. Al couldn't imagine what his wife was going through, what the couple were going through; his Mother had been far better able to hide the pain of the disease she died of. Al momentarily entertained what it would feel like to sit by someone you cared for and watch them suffer for a great length of time. Again, his only reference point was to place himself at his Mother's bedside. The train of thought ended there, he could not bring himself to think of her suffering any longer than he'd already witnessed.

"She sounds like a strong lady. I'm sure she'll be alright," Al's soft gaze fell into his lap, "then you can have your family just as you want it to become."

Mitchell reached over and ruffled Alphonse's hair, "Don't concern yourself over my family, you have your own to worry about. I'm sorry I dumped that on you."

Al's eyes looked up at the statement; he sank in the seat of the car, "Mr. Mitchell?"

Slowly taking his hand away from Al, the man's eyes grew concerned again by Al's tentative voice, "Yes?"

"I accidentally left with something from the Hughes residence when we were there. Would I be able to go back sometime so I can return it?"

"You're an honest young man," Mitchell watched with a smile as Al glanced out the window at the comment, "if we have time tonight we'll do it. If not, there's an entire day tomorrow."

With a nod of his head, Al kept his eyes gazing out the window. He felt as though he should take a cue from Mitchell's wife. It was about time he stood on his own two feet again.

* * *

"I think people would have taken him more seriously if he'd said he'd been abducted by aliens."

Ed raised his eyebrows at the comment, slouching in the reception lounge chair; a place he'd been for the last four hours, "It was that bad?"

Not more than half an hour ago, this younger, much more bubbly woman, had come to send the previous receptionist home. At least this person talked to Edward, which was a far cry better than anyone else in the building had done for him, "Oh God, he had the priests suckered right into the whole thing. They were afraid the devil himself would surface into Reinert and we'd all fall into hell."

Momentarily Edward wished he could quip, 'you mean we're not there already?' He simply shook his head at that, "The priests should have shown a little more caution before encouraging something abstract like that."

The young receptionist shrugged, "Apparently he told those priests some things he refused to tell anyone else. It scared them half to death," she twirled the pencil in her finger, "but until I hear for myself what he said to them, it's all fishy."

Ed gave a slight nod to her comments, "Defiantly fishy," it was then the mental debate began to determine how badly he wanted to pose the next question; Ed finally raised his voice, "whatever became of Reinert's relationship with those priests? Does he still see them?"

"It was so tragic!" Ed was slightly taken aback by the woman's exuberance, "when the flu came through around the end of the war, it wiped out that whole church! The priests went to help in the hospitals cope with all the people, and got sick themselves."

No matter how much he tried to understand it, he could never fully comprehend how much disease this world had. Even more astonishing was how slow medical technology was to keeping up. It never ceased to amaze Edward about how right his Father was, this world was simply full of death. Rolling his eyes in disgust, he turned his focus back to the puzzling oddity that was becoming Robert Reinert.

Their conversation was halted by a convoy of men and women emerging from beyond the doors Edward had not been permitted to enter. He watched as they began to say their good byes to each other. From the corner of his eye he caught the receptionist stand up from her desk and move to mingle within the crowd. Returning to slouching in the chair, Ed stared blankly across the room; wondering how much longer he'd be able to survive before falling asleep where he sat.

"Sir?"

Ed turned his head up to the receptionist, unable to wipe the bored look from his face.

"You wanted to speak to Mr. Reinert?" The woman motioned to the man on her right.

Startled by the announcement, Ed scrambled to his feet. He looked to a tall, heavier set man, sleek dark black hair, with a curling black moustache, "Good to finally meet you, Mr. Reinert," Ed offered a light bow as opposed to a hand shake.

Reinert smirked at Ed's odd gesture, "Like wise, Mr. Elric it was?" Ed gave an affirmative nod. "I can't say as I can recall your name, young man? Are you someone's apprentice?"

"Apprentice?" Ed shifted his posture, confused by the question.

"Yes," Reinert gave a firm nod at the statement, "you're a journalist, are you not?"

Ed slowly shook his head, "I'm not."

"Radio hand?"

"No, sir."

Folding his arms, a disgusted and unimpressed look spread across Reinert's face, "Why are you wasting my time then?"

Edward quickly searched for something to appease the man, "I'm a fan of your work…"

Still obviously unimpressed by Edward's motives, Reinert's expression lifted slightly, "What can I do for you, I haven't much time left in the break."

"I wanted to discuss your work on the Homunculus features you created," Ed began to explain, though his original questions somewhat modified by the awkward experiences the secretary had divulged to him, "I'm interested in the background work and information you uncovered to develop the character. What sort of resources you ha-"

"Bugger off little boy," Reinert dismissed his presence.

"_Little_?" a vein in Ed's forehead was about to snap.

Turning away from Ed, Reinert gave a wave of his hand in an attempt to cease acknowledgement of Edward's existence, "I don't have time to deal with people like you. I have nothing to do with that film any longer."

"No wait, really, I'm here with some serious reasons and interest," Edward began to peruse the man walking back into the sanctuary of his studio, "just hear me out!"

The darkened expression upon Reinert's face startled Ed as the man turned around, "If you don't leave, I'll have security remove you."

Tightening his jaw in frustration, Edward tried to remain diplomatic in his conduct to further his quest, "Isn't there something I can offer you in exchange for twenty minutes of your time on this? Some sort of equivalent trade?"

Instantly taken aback by the man's startled and wide-eyed reaction to his comments, Ed took a step back. He watched as a sudden fear briefly ran across the man's eyes; the two stood motionless within the room. Ed tried to pin point what he'd said to startle the man like this.

"Get out," Reinert's cold voice rang out finally, "get out now, because I'm calling security."

Ed's left fist clenched shut as the urge to bark at the man grew stronger, he debated on his next actions; should he back down like this…

"Maybe if I see you on my way out tonight, we can talk," the comment caught Ed's attention, "Until then, get out of my building."

* * *

"Look, it's just a simple bit of information. It can't hurt to just say yes or no because I know he was here," Winry leaned over the reception desk to the young man in hospital scrubs sitting in the chair.

"And you look, for the hundredth and final time I will tell you that unless you have a police badge, military uniform or signed government documentation saying you are so and so and you have such and such authorization to this and that…" Winry wondered how far she could jam a wrench down his throat, "…I cannot and will not disclose any patient information to you," the man with curly blonde hair folded his arms on the desk; leaning forward into her face. A lightning bolt of aggravation existed between their two annoyed expressions.

"Drop me a hint then! A clue! Something," Winry's voice challenged as she wrinkled her face in frustration, "this is important, and you're not understanding that! Is there nothing I can do to get you to give me a hint!"

A sly smirk crossed the man's face, as his hand reached out and started to pull down the zipper on the front of Winry's jacket, "sure there is…" Without ever seeing it coming, Winry's rectangular shoulder bag of tools left a permanent impression in the side of his face. She marched off down the hall, never looking back to see the man twitch on the ground.

"Disgusting waste of space," Winry folded her arms across her chest as she powered down the hall, her eye twitching as she moved, "my body's a temple, how could he think I'd be easy like that." Abruptly turning the corner, she marched down the hall to another wing of the hospital. No one interrupted her as she stormed through the halls, slowly growing more irate at everyone's refusal to give her information. She had to eventually find someone who was out of the loop. The staff's suggestions of 'the police' or 'the military's information's department' for help would have gone over better if she hadn't quickly discovered she was a wanted person the night before. Never the less, come hell or high water, she wasn't leaving until she found Al or some information about him. Putting her hands firmly out in front of herself, Winry burst through a pair of swinging double doors… and stopped dead in her tracks.

It was only the backs of their heads but Winry instantly became alarmed. Both Breda and Falman stood with two members of hospital security; she was not close enough to hear the conversation that kept them distracted. Their presence froze her so abruptly she wasted several seconds standing in the hall before slowly stepping backwards. Not letting the heels of her shoes click on the ground, Winry backed out of the swinging doors without a sound. The moment the door shut to conceal her presence, Winry spun on her toes and took off down the hall. The running could not raise her heart rate any higher than it had gotten in the last few seconds.

"Would you like me to park the car and wait, Sir?" the driver called out as Al shut his door.

"No that's fine, use the time to your leisure; just make sure you're back in an hour," Mitchell stood next to Alphonse, two assigned security guards graced their sides upon arrival. As the car sped off, Al walked inside with the Prime Minister, the boy's hands in his jean pockets. Glancing up, Al caught the looks in the officers eyes; they seemed disinterested in taking part in escort duty. It had been Mitchell who had requested their security services earlier in the day.

Stepping into the somewhat crowded early-evening reception area; it became apparent that every staff member had been informed of the man's impending arrival. Everyone smiled and greeted him, as if scripted by some greater authority. Frowning, Al wondered how many of these people actually approved of Mitchell's presence.

"Your wife is actually up on the third floor Mister Prime Minister, she requested a more private venue and we had a space available for her. She was quite energetic around noon today, very excited for you to meet her young guest," came the words of a man who'd made his presence as a senior doctor of the facility obvious.

"Are they both there?" Mitchell's excited tone caused Al's lips to curl in amusement.

The doctors nodded affirmatively, "The young lady's been quite shy, though. She's sat quietly with your wife for a while now. Your Misses seems to enjoy brushing the long lengths of hair the child has."

Turning to Alphonse, any unpleasant mood he'd been carrying had washed away; Mitchell put his hands on Al's shoulders, "When you're done, the doctors will bring you back up to me on the third floor."

Al gave an affirmative nod as a doctor lead him in one direction while the rest of the congregation headed in the opposite way. Looking up to the doctor, the man's hair was sleeked back, his white coat floating out behind his scrubs. Al watched as he examined his clipboard, "You have a few stitches still at your shoulder, on your hip, and just behind your ear," the man looked down at him, "right?"

Nodding silently, Al felt somewhat relaxed by the man's casual demeanour; the pair turned the corner.

Before ever realizing he'd left his feet, Al found himself flat on his back upon the ground, the doctor next to him. Bringing his hand to his head, Al listened as the doctor's voice barked out, "What the hell are you doing running in the hospital!"

"Sir, I am SO sorry, I didn't realize anyone was-"

"Winry!" Al sat up sharply, his hand still on his head, eyes wide in shock. Winry's gaping expression stared back at him, no less than five feet away upon the floor. It was the doctor first to his feet while Winry and Al remained silent on the ground. Before either could speak again, the doctor pulled Al to his feet and brushed him off. The man wasn't given time to finish before Winry invaded their space and wrapped her arms around Al tightly, "Thank goodness."

With a puzzled glance to the situation, the doctor took out his keys and opened the first room in the hall for Al, then promptly turned back to Winry. His voice was sharp, "Get out of the examination hall before I call security. This is a patients and doctors only area."

"No! She's going to stay with me," Al piped up as Winry unwrapped her arms from him, turning to face the doctor.

The man's aura of annoyance grew, still displeased that he'd been knocked from his feet by some girl who did not belong in the hallway, "She's someone you know?"

"Sister."

"Cousin."

Al and Winry exchanged a quick glance before Winry covered the situation, "A cousin who's just like his big sister," she flashed a sweet smile.

The doctor's eye twitched at the pair before turning away cautiously, "I need to grab the log book from my office, have a seat."

"You bet," Winry saluted, quickly ushering Al into the room and pulling the tiny room's door shut. Without pause, she spun on her heels abruptly, eyes wide with concern; her hands reached out for Al.

"What are you doing here!" Al sputtered out.

"Are you okay?" Winry's voice quivered slightly, she thought it best to simply hug him tightly one more time, even if it only made her feel better, "I was so worried you weren't okay."

Al's chin rested in her shoulder; she was wrong, the embrace made more than herself feel better, "I'm alright," he answered before stepping back; Al watched Winry straighten her jacket as he hopped onto the examination bed, "What are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you when you didn't show up in Dublith. I was worried, there were so many stories that didn't make any sense," she sat down next to him, brushing his bangs from his face, "You're all scratched up."

Al's eyes turned away from her, "I didn't think the problem was this bad originally, I've made it somewhat worse since then. I didn't want you to worry more than you already were."

"Al! Don't be silly," Winry's voice came out firmly, "I'm family. Even though Roze, Izumi and myself aren't related to you, we're still family. Families are supposed to worry about you, and we worry because you're important to us," Winry watched as Al's eyes lifted, not realizing he was taking her words and linking it with far more than the people he'd lived with the last seven months, "you're supposed to ask me for help when you're in trouble." Winry wrapped an arm around his shoulder; she found the most comforting thing about sitting with Al was that when she had something important to say, he would listen far better than his brother ever had, "Ed use to do the same thing, he'd try to leave out the people who worried about him; he thought he could carry the burden himself. It doesn't always work that way."

Winry's assessment of Al was correct, he let each word run through his mind; slowly the defeated expression lingering around began to lift. What remained was unwavering resolve; she'd answered any doubt that remained.

* * *

A washed out sunset sank over the western most row of housing. Reaching into his pocket, Edward pulled out his silver watch and checked the time. Sighing once more he returned to sitting with his head in his hands upon the sets of stairs outside the studio. The chilly light wind that existed into the evening had nipped his cheeks and turned them a potent blush-pink. Having lost count long ago, Ed had begun to ignore the opening and closing of all the doors he heard while people came and went. The most prominent exodus of people coming a few hours ago when the general staff ended their workday at 6:30. Yet even afterwards, the flow of people remained somewhat constant.

"Honestly," the voice from behind grabbed Ed's attention, "I never thought you would be so foolish and wait out here."

Ed frowned, looking over his shoulder; "I was hoping to catch you on your way out."

Reinert folded his arms over and made his way down the ten steps to where Edward sat, "You picked a bad time to bring that up, especially in front of all those people. That movie and I were once quite the gossip session; people thought it may have cost me my sanity. I'd prefer not to bring that shame up again and risk loosing the respect of my peers."

"I didn't realize..." straightening his back, Ed looked on at the man, not entirely certain about the entire issue they were discussing.

Sitting down on the cold cement stairs next to Edward, the man took out his package of cigarettes, "One of my runners mentioned that you were sitting out here still. I thought I needed a smoke break," an event that commenced at the strike of Reinert's match, "I can't imagine why you'd be so interested in this movie and my involvement with it."

"I think the information will be helpful in some research I'm doing," Ed grew concerned as he spoke, Reinert's gaze challenged his every word, "I want to know what your resources were when you created the character. Any inferences or texts..." Ed's voice trailed off, silenced by a crushing set of eyes.

"You should know that I scolded the receptionist for what she told you earlier. In doing so, she shared some of the questions you redirected at her once you had that knowledge. Don't humor me like a fool," with a deep inhale of his cigarette, Reinert continued his assault, "You speak English, don't you?"

Ed startled at the comment, having no idea to the purpose behind the question.

"You're very good at carrying a German accent. I can understand English clearly as if it were my first language; which is why I picked up on it when you spoke. Yet, my mouth has never provided an English word to anyone; beyond '_hello_' and '_goodbye_' I've never been educated in the language. I've never done an English film," from the echo of his own voice, he could feel Ed examine his every word, "I received the knowledge through the frightening term you used: 'Equivalent Trade'."

Glancing to Edward, Reinert was somewhat amused by the disturbed wide-eyed reaction he'd been given. 'Frightening' wasn't something Edward had ever associated with 'Equivalent Trade'. Indulging in his cigarette once again, Reinert faced out into the street, "The only other time I've heard a transaction phrased that way was when the Devil walked into my consciousness," tucking the cigarette package in his pocket the man stood up, "let's go for a walk, Mr. Elric. As long as my words don't show up in the tabloids, I'll entertain you."

Slowly Edward rose to his feet, briefcase in hand; his penetrating gaze trained on Reinert as if he were afraid to loose this information. The two stepped away from the building, heading down the quiet evening path. Their footsteps remained in opposite sequence as they moved silently through the sickly coloured orange light.

"Something tells me I should know you," Reinert continued the conversation, "And then I gave myself away when you saw how upset your comment had made me," the man's left hand found it's way into his pocket as the right handled the cigarette, "I use to fear sleep. I feared a demon lived within me and if I fell asleep once more it would again request ownership on my existence. It was a demon that I'd created for my Homunculus series. Though I never asked his name, nor purpose for existence; I knew so much about it the moment it entered my body" Edward's eyes never left the man, "I went to the church and asked for help; they told me that I had to cleanse my body of the Devil my mind had created and nurtured. I rid myself of all memorabilia and nostalgia that existed in my possession. It worked to an extent; the Devil itself did not return. By this time, word had spread around the theatre circles and I was loosing my mind."

Edward's ponytail swayed lightly with each step, "The Homunculus in your movie gave you a nightmare that caused you to disassociate yourself from this movie?" his voice hinted of curiosity mixed with confusion while he egged on the conversation.

As firmly as he'd been stepping each foot to the cement, Reinert stopped in his tracks, "No Mr. Elric, this was not a nightmare. It was a violation of my soul. I can remember everything I felt, everything I saw, everything I experienced, everything of the Devil's existence far more vividly than any memory I hold. I cannot explain most of it and when I try, I've been laughed at more times than any comedian should command his audience to."

The breeze flicked at the tail ends of Edwards coat as he reached back and smoothed the ponytail, trying to keep his disposition as calm and composed as he could, "I don't think a crime on your body by any entity is something to laugh at." Ed barely had enough time to complete his sentence before Reinert grabbed him by the chin.

"The longer I see you, the more I hear your voice... there's something connecting you. But yours is different, I can't put my finger on it," he sighed reluctantly, letting go of Edward, "As I slept, I was laughed at. I could not identify the source of the laugh and thought perhaps the noise had filtered into my dream since I was not yet sound asleep. What felt like partial sleep was described by the Devil as a severe disassociation between my mind, body and soul," Edward let the briefcase slip from his fingers; his mind never registered the sound of it hitting the ground, "It was an 'ailment' everyone suffered from, yet mine was more prominent than others. It was for this reason, as well as my knowledge of Homunculus's state of existence, that he chose myself as his candidate and prevented me from waking. I was informed I would be unable to regain consciousness until he had left, or until I submitted to his demands."

Edward felt his body stiffen as he kept a deliberate control over his own breathing, "… That's impossible. I didn't have that kind of recognition."

"Excuse me?" Reinert looked to Edward, unnerved by his comments.

Edward partially raised his hands in defence, "Never mind. It's not important enough. I want to hear the rest."

"Young man, you make me uneasy," Reinert flicked the ashes from his cigarette, his wary eye keeping close tabs on Edward, "you're only the second person to encourage my discussion on the issue who hasn't looked at me as though I'd lost my sanity or warranted an exorcism."

"Second person?"

The man dropped the remains of his cigarette to the ground; he put it out with the tip of his shoe, "The other man frightened me so badly I thought perhaps I should simply return to Austria and raise cattle."

Ed's eyes shot around with a nervous anticipation, "Who? That Devil? Someone who looked like it? Sounded like it?"

"No," Reinert shook his head slowly, taking another cigarette from the package and lighting it, "Mr. Elric, the purpose of the Devil's several-hour intrusion into my soul was because he was looking for a vessel to coexist with; I refused to submit. By his presence, I could feel the need for vengeful satisfaction; there was no other purpose to his existence than that," his eyes focused on Edward, "a man named Hohenheim came to see me at my home nearly two years ago, carrying similar questions as you have. From the moment I opened my door, even before he spoke his name, I knew who he was. The Devil had made it no secret to me that he was searching for this man, and even after three years I could not forget the face that fuelled such a vicious demon. I wanted nothing to do with him and slammed the door. I told him if he ever came back, I'd shoot him where he was standing."

Edward slowly reached down to pick up the briefcase, only Reinert was aware of how pale he had turned. The thought of his Father's involvement did not concern him as much as the other implications did. The uneasy feeling that consumed his body made Edward feel light headed, "There's no way…" he took a step backwards, distancing himself from Reinert, "no way for him to exist here. No way he could have known."

Reinert's expression grew defensive and angered, "What the hell are you going on about?"

"When he left your body, where did he go?" Ed suddenly pleaded, approaching the man once more, "did he give you any idea. Any clue on what he would do, where he would-"

His voice fell to silence; Ed's eyes stared startled down the barrel of a quickly drawn handgun, concealed behind Reinert's jacket, "I don't need this, not anymore. The conversation ends now," the man's hand held steady, "you get the same warning as that Hohenheim. I want nothing to do with that problem, I am not involved."

"You ARE involved," Ed snapped back, irritated by the man's refusal. He found himself instantly silenced and frozen into place by the gunshot deafening his right ear.

"I have four bullets left. You have ten seconds to disappear."

* * *

Winry's chatter had kept the trio in the examination room nearly an hour, no one would have given a thought to looking in this locked room for her. She'd hoped they'd conclude she was nowhere to be found. With the guise of innocence, Winry wandered down the hall with Al as they made their way, following the doctor, towards the flights of stairs leading to the third floor.

"He's fed you hasn't he?" a scowl marched across Winry's face as she quizzed him stubbornly.

"Yes," Al's eyes looked to the ceiling, already getting tired of the 'how've you been treated?' lines of questioning.

"He didn't lock you away in your room?" she folded her arms; her commanding questions had begun only moments before they'd left the room, once she found out the significance of the man she was staying with.

"I was in their library most of the time," Al's tone of voice had begun to protest the questions.

Winry's eyes snapped wide, "He locked you in his library!"

"No!" Al let off a tired whine, "he didn't lock me anywhere, he treated me with so much generosity. I wasn't even supposed to stay with him originally."

Winry gave a huff as she put her hands onto her hips, the heels of her shoes clacking on the stairs as they entered the stairwell; beginning their ascent to the next floor, "You'd think a man with all that money and power would have at least bought you something nicer to wear than jeans and a t-shirt."

The unimpressed look Al had begun to give Winry strengthened, "You're not being fair, Winry. You haven't even met him."

"I'm just say-"

The attention of Al, Winry and their doctor was grabbed while they moved to the next flight of stairs. Three doctors and two nurses flung open the stairwell doors, blew by the trio, and rushed up the stairs. One of them called to Al's doctor as they moved, demanding his presence in a third floor room. Whatever the significance of number meant, it struck panic into the man. Without a second thought for Winry and Al, whom he'd left behind, the man charged up to the third floor.

Standing in their wake, the young pair gave a nervous glance to each other; the urgency of the voices had sent shivers down their spines. Finally moving swiftly up the stairs following the physicians, the sounds of voices were clearly heard before they emerged from the stairwell doors.

Al emerged in the hall before Winry could summon the courage to move beyond the doors. White hospital gowns, scrubs and coats adorned the people in the hallway; the faces he could see were soaking in tears, huddles in each other's hands and arms. Al could not bring himself to ask anyone what happened; his ears remained alert and his heart trembled at what could have brought this mass of people to such a state.

A hand came onto Al's shoulder, the shaken eyes and voice of a nurse told him to go to another floor; this corridor had become temporarily sealed. Al moved to protest, but before the woman could argue with him further, she'd become distracted by a co-worker's need for comfort. Seizing the opportunity, Al continued to push through the gathering.

It was the Prime Minister's enraged voice that silenced and stopped all movement within the hall; so raised, so pitched, and so overcome with emotion Al found it deeply upsetting. Suddenly too frightened to move forward; Al, along with everyone else, found themselves brought to a halt within the hall. It was only after the growth of his confusion and curiosity that he could move again, faster than anyone else in the hall.

Al moved until he found himself standing within the hospital room centring the commotion. Numerous people had gathered, doctors and nurses alike. Some sat in chairs, their head in their hands, other's stood silently at the bedsides. Al watched as Mitchell gently ran his hand through the black hair of the woman lying silent in the bed, the man's choking voice enough to allow the youngest Elric a chance to confirm what he feared had happened. It was all too familiar; he could so easily replace his Mother's face in the bed where this lady once lived. The imagery and likeness to an image still hurting so much gave Al cause to back out of the room.

Never making it to the door, a hand was placed firmly at Al's back. He did not have time to properly react; the hand ushered him to the side of the room, away from the people who had finally begun talking. Turning to look up at his guide, Al watched the transparent gaze of the Mitchell family nurse turn solemnly away from him.

"Sir, perhaps you should take a moment and take a sip from the fountain?" her voice was the most prominent of the men and women speaking.

"I'm fine, I'll stay here."

The hurt in Mitchell's voice made Al feel as though he'd intruded upon something he should not have. This was not his family; this was not his place to be. Al's eyes canvassed the room, looking to leave once more. His gaze got no further than the little girl curled up in the cushioned chair along the wall from where he stood. Her knees brought up as her arms hugged them; though he could not see her face, her head was turned as it rested against her legs. She was able to watch the events within the room beyond the lengths of long pure-brown hair covering her back and shoulders like a veil.

Al moved along the wall, his mind trying to restrain himself from becoming engulfed by the emotions everyone carried. Sitting down in the seat next to the curled up child, he waited next to her in silence. Al watched her, making no secret of his interest in her presence; he waited to see if she'd acknowledge him before finally speaking up.

"Um…" his voice a low whisper as he tried to remain invisible within the grieving room, "are you okay?" Al watched as her head turned away from the scene and she simply hid behind her knees. He knew who she was; there was no other reason for a child of this age to be in the room. Al wondered if he could empathize with how out of place she must feel, "maybe we should wait outside and let them have their moment?"

"Okay," lifting her head, her forlorn gaze turned to look into Al's expression, accepting the invitation.

Unprepared, Al was taken aback by the rounded blue eyes he looked into, the curl of bangs that graced her forehead, and the baby cheeks she still carried. He stared into eyes of a familiar face he'd never met; somewhere beneath this confusion and sudden uncertainty, it frightened him. Not wanting her to catch his apprehension, Al moved to stand up, offering his hand as a guide. The white dress, with red buttons and collar, hung to her knees as she stood up; the matching red charmed necklace hung around her while the hip-lengths of hair fell over her shoulders. The girl's smaller palm and fingers fit perfectly into Al's hand as he led her out of the room; the pure blue eyes cast to the ground, never noticing Al's vigilant eye.

"We're going to wait with my friend Winry, okay?" Al's soft voice kept a gentle tone as the two walked. Finally he chose to take his hand away from her; worried she'd pick up on his raging heartbeat through the touch.

The soft child's voice simply replied, "Okay," once more. Al placed his hand at her shoulder as they approached Winry, who'd not taken more than ten steps away from the stairwell doors.

"Al," Winry's voice shook, feeding off the reactions of the people in the hall way, "what happened?" She knew by now, but posed the question anyways.

Al stalled; Winry's statement distracted him from his current train of thought and directed it back to the issue everyone else concerned themselves with. He glanced over his shoulder towards the thinning assembly of people.

"Mrs. Mitchell said mean things to Mr. Mitchell that made him cry, so she died," the little voice spoke up, as if she were unable to understand the severity of the information she'd provided. Winry and Al glanced to each other, wondering if they should some how correct the child's misinterpretation of events, "her body was shaking when we held her hands. The doctor said she had things called seizures. She scared me…" Her gaze traveled to Al; again, he found her face hard to comprehend.

Winry knelt down in front of the little girl, and hugged her tightly, "I'm so sorry you had to see that."

"Winry," Al glanced to her, "I'm going to the washroom, I'll be right back."

She glanced up quickly, taking a swift breath, "Al, wait! Are you going to be okay?" Winry's voice called out, watching as he did not turn back. The child turned within Winry's arms to see Al run down the hall.

Al pushed through the doctors and nurses who'd begun to wander away from the scene; it was his mind that hurt the most, not his chest nor heart. He tried his best to ignore the guilt created from his lack of immediate concern for the Mitchell family; something bothered him far more than that. Finding himself leaning up against the tile wall within the men's washroom, Al took a moment to reorganize his thoughts. His eyes turned to the door, not wanting anyone to intrude; he slid down the wall until he sat upon the cold cement floor. Existing in the sound of his own breathing, Al finally reached for the inside pocket of his jacket.

* * *

Upon turning the deadbolt on the door, latching the chain, and dumping his coat into the closet, Edward dragged his tired self across the house to the fireplace; wanting nothing more than to put his feet up. Falling into the cushioning of the couch, the first thing Ed did before his right heel ever came on to the coffee table was remove the false left leg. By doing so, it was the most relieving feeling he could have wished for in the evening. Pulling it out from the bottom of the pant leg he propped the contraption up at the side of the couch – out of sight, out of mind. The decision to fashion an AutoMail for his leg had never been taken to the production stage; Ed had found himself able to manage with the custom made devise he and his Father had commissioned before they'd left London. The AutoMail arm, finally completed over a year ago, had always been top priority.

Ed, too tired to get up and tend to the sore stump of a leg, flopped into the decorative pillows adorning each end of the couch; he buried his face in them as the clock rang out 11pm. The remainder of his leg throbbed and burned from the hours of walking he'd embarked on when he'd chosen to use his feet to home, rather than attempt to retrieve the car he'd arrived in. His frustration with Reinert and greater frustration with his Father was subdued at the point in time his legs had started to ache. He wasn't use to feeling so tired from standing so long; his main method of transportation back home had either been his feet or the train. The lack of refined mechanics that Winry had once equipped him with, and the comfortable boots he missed, could simply not be replaced.

Buried within the pillows, Ed's eyebrows rose as he heard some attempt to unlock the front door – only to be stopped by the strong chain he'd latched. The wannabe intruder pushed on the door again to no avail. The door clicked shut as Ed cautiously lifted himself up, displeased that his chance at relaxation was being interrupted. Finally the doorbell rang with a firm knock on the door.

"EDWARD! Unlatch this door."

The sound of his Father's voice gave Ed cause to scowl as he rolled off the couch; he stood up on the right leg, it too sore from hip to toes. With spite for the wooden leg that gave him so much grief throughout the evening, Ed used the couch and walls for support while hopping down the hall, "I'm coming, hold on!"

Giving the chain a noisy detachment to ensure Hohenheim was aware the door was open, Ed reached into the closet while his Father entered the house.

"Why did you lock that when I wasn't here?" came the first words from Hohenheim's mouth, even before he was fully in the house.

Ed snapped back at him as he jerked a crutch out from the closet, "I'm supposed to know you weren't locked away in your study? You're never out this late. Don't scold _me_ because _you_ didn't come home before eleven," Ed mused over the fact his Father didn't know he'd only gotten home 10 minutes ago, "where the hell were you?"

Hohenheim's displeased expression from being locked out of his own house fell away as he eyed the empty pant leg, "What did you…?" he dressed his jacket onto a hanger.

"In the living room," knowing by the look in the man's eyes, Ed answered the ensuing question with a snitty tone, "because my leg is sore." He shifted his weight primarily to the crutch.

He did not dignify Ed's response with another 'why' question; instead, Hohenheim chose to answer a question offered up previously, "I was with a few Thule members down in the cathedral hall."

Edward's tone mellowed at the puzzling response, "This late?"

Walking past his son, through the hall, and into the living room, Hohenheim stood behind the couch and looked into the unlit fireplace, "Some interesting things were happening today, so I stayed behind," he gave a stretch to his arms, "I take it you planned on having an interesting day too," Hohenheim's parental eyes turned around as Edward made his way down the hall, "is that why my car isn't out front?"

Ed stopped dead in his movements, "… Well…"

"Will I get it back in time so I can drive myself to work today instead of walking again?"

"… Probably not," Ed's wide eyes glanced away as a sweat drop trickled down his cheek; he proceeded to turn away, "I'm going to get something to drin-"

No transition statements were offered as Hohenheim's stiff commanding voice stopped his son before he could wander away, "What did Reinert have to say to you?"

Turning as sharply as his body would allow, Ed's attention shot back to his Father, startled by the comment; never mind the change in tone. The look in Edward's eyes voiced his 'how did you know that?' statement.

"A young lady came to visit me today, she told me what you'd gone off to do," Hohenheim looked out into the hall Ed stood within, the displeasure embedded in his eyes was potent; yet not entirely directed to his son.

Somewhat challenged by his Father's reaction none the less, Ed's hand gripped the crutch tightly, "If you had any idea what was going on, why didn't you tell me! Don't you think something like that would be important? Something I have every right to know about!"

"And what sort of information would I have provided to you?" Hohenheim's gave a hefty sigh, releasing the tension growing around himself, "I was left in the dark by that man. The only certainty I had was someone made him aware of my existence; I have no clear idea how. I had only vague speculations that could, in no way, be proven. It was impossible to deal with someone that would rather have me shot dead than entertain my presence for a few minutes."

"Idiot. He endangers more people by saying nothing to us," Ed grit his teeth, angry at the thought. He gave up on his beverage quest and moved past his Father into the living room, "I don't remember you ever going to meet anyone named Reinert."

Hohenheim shook his head, somewhat nostalgic at the memory, "You were on a war path to get that arm working correctly. I wasn't going to distract you with something potentially trivial," Ed rolled his eyes at the comments, "before I'd gone to see him, my interest was simple curiosity. Dietrich and Karl mentioned the movie to me, I hadn't heard the term Homunculus used on this side before. The moment I realized that man knew who I was, my entire opinion changed." Hohenheim made his way across the room; he gave a glance to Ed as his son flopped down in the corner of the couch. The elder Elric moved to the front of the room, crouching down before his idle fireplace. Removing the screen, he struck a match and tossed it into the kindling, "The problem remained: what opinion do I form? The man was mentally unstable I'd been told. But…" he tossed a second match, "if he had given this reaction to anyone other than myself… then maybe I could have thought differently. I was the only one."

Ed leaned on the arm of the couch, resting upon the pillows tucked in that corner. Watching as his Father fought to get the fire going, Ed's body and voice sank into the what little comfort the cushioning could provide, "When I was first in London, my mind and soul had been attracted to the body of the Edward existing here. My actual body remained at The Gate. The second time, I offered myself and found all three pieces on this side. If a Homunculus is able to make it's way through the Gate, only two of those three pieces exist…"

"Only one," Ed's eyes looked to his Father as he encouraged the fire with the poker, "A Homunculus' body is created through alchemy and sustained by the red stones. Even if it looks, feels and acts as a human body should, it is not human. With neither element being possible across the Gate, the alchemized body would not be sustainable once it crossed over."

Ed's left hand came up to his forehead; his fingers slowly combed through his bangs as he thought of the scenario Reinert had provided for him, "If only a Homunculus' mind was able to cross over, it wouldn't be attracted to anything because it doesn't have a mirror existence on this side. Without that attraction… how would it exist in this world?"

Hohenheim replaced the screen upon the fireplace and rose to his feet. His shoulder and weight soon came to rest against the wall as he stood in thought; the fire's glow gradually filled the room. Hohenheim brought his hand over his mouth; it had been a long time since he'd examined these prospects, "As a parasite…"

"… trying to select a host," Ed's troubled eyes watched the immediate mixed-emotion reaction Hohenheim had to his son's input. The elder man's shoulders fell, a disheartened feeling overcoming him. Ed lost sight of the emotion in his Father's eyes, the man's head tilted so the glasses he wore protected the gaze. Ghosts followed him everywhere, even to this dead existence.

Reaching his arms out in front of himself, Ed stretched his shoulders and back before hunching forward in his seat; a cloud of unease lingered in the room. Edward provided the information before his Father could take a deep enough breath to ask, "The 'parasite' invaded Reinert because of his understanding of Homunculus and the 'severe disassociation between his mind, body and soul'. It demanded coexistence. Reinert refused to live like that and fought the 'demon' off because of how frightening it was," Ed's fingers slowly kneaded the pillow he leaned up against while Hohenheim moved to sit down at the other end of the couch; he watched Edward speak as if reciting a story, "it's vengeance streak frightened Reinert, and you were the embodiment of what encouraged the rage. That's why he was afraid," his gaze toiled in the newly burning fire, "You went to see him two years ago, but all of those events happened nearly five years ago. What's gone on in these last five years?"

"Growth."

**

* * *

**

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**  
R&R would be lovely!

I never mentioned it (ambiguity!) but I'm sure you figured out who Hohenheim and Ed are referring to (turn back now if not). However, Ed is showing no realization to the fact he told Envy where to find Hohenheim. The reason for that is because Ed doesn't remember doing it. While Ed stood at the Gate when Envy went through he was crying, when Ed wakes up with Roze he's still crying and goes "Why am I crying?". Moral of the story is, Ed doesn't remember he sent Envy through the gate with Hohenheim knowledge.

Now you're going "Ed told Envy that Hohenheim was in London, why didn't Envy end up in London 5 years ago?" Episode 51 Envy asks, "Where does it lead to?" and Ed goes, "for me, it was some place called London." Ed goes on to hint that the Gate's transportation method to the other side is highly unstable. An open-ended plot statements like this make fanfic writing more interesting.

I'm looking for Winry to be more of an older sister figure than a best friend figure for Al, because of the age difference now. It's still sort of awkward with them currently. I'd like to expand on Winry's character some.

I liken Reinert to Marcoh, a man very much involved who does not want to be involved what so ever.

**Chapter 57 Feedback**

Maaya – Glad I exceeded your expectations X3

SidhePrincessAislinn – I'll eventually disclose what Ed came down with :)

Anonymosity – One of the funnest things about the fic is all the famous people I have to wrap my head around and not screw up XD

chibi-sherri – Ohh long... I've actually not had anyone complain about Roy, he's just a character I worry about getting wrong because all of his angst and animosity is internal, not external. I want to make sure I can portray his external cockiness and internal angst with a good balance. I'm not a Roy fangirl, but I have a lot of respect for his character. I actually kept episode 43 in my mind when I was writing Roy's tirade on Sheska, because that episode showed a whole other dimension of Roy. For Hohenheim, I fell in love with him in the anime, something about his character was very endearing, very sad and lonely. I can see him being a really caring Father who lives with a great deal of guilt and shame he cannot atone for -gives the shattered Elric family. As for Santa, I had Santa spoilt for me when I was 4 or 5. I know that I read the story about where Santa originally came from, but I can't remember it off hand. I know it started around the mid 1800's. Santa craze exploded when Coke used him as a winter marketing tool in the 1930's.

Rogue Shadow – XD I love you too, your reply made me happy. I take pride in the fact I was able to save(?) you from this horror known as homework X3. I'm glad I was able to entertain you this past weekend... and I hope to entertain you some more today :D!


	8. Replacements

**He Who Searches For Himself**

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* * *

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"We never really talked about it, about how he got here. We talked all about how I got here, well more like interrogated, but I never asked about his situation. I could take a guess about who put him here, especially after what Sensei told me in Dante's mansion. I never asked about the things that Homunculus had said and I never asked about what Dante said; it didn't seem to be my place to question him. I never asked why he left Dante probably because I couldn't blame him, and I never asked why he abandoned the creature he created maybe because I didn't want to know. I wondered if he had known that Mom was sick; the doctor said she'd been ill for a while, but I never really knew if it was in terms of years or months. There are a lot of things I don't ask about. The closest I came to asking was some day when I got angry and shot back at him with some derogatory comment about his situation; I said something about us being a replacement for his original family. I don't think he's ever scared me as badly as he did that day with his reaction. I did ask him if he knew how Dante found out about us and what we had for a family; he said that he had no idea. He volunteered that he knew Dante had been teaching a new student around the time he'd left us; seems after all those years he still kept track of her movements, probably a wise idea. He suspected that the young lady, Izumi Curtis, was supposed to have been the original pawn used to create the Philosopher's Stone. He told me that Sensei most likely did not end up in Rizembool for us to meet by accident, especially since Dante was the one who had trained Izumi for so long before she'd gone out on her own. Everything Sensei knew, which was everything Dante had wanted her to know, was passed down to us. She had us bred long before we ever showed up in Central. Dad apologized for that."

**Chapter 59 – Replacements**

Ed folded his arms at the end of the table and put his chin down atop them. His eyebrow twitched slightly while considering his options; continually glaring at the latest problem gracing the table. Eventually he picked his head up, looked over his shoulder, and leaned back to consult Oberth.

"If I took that one, and moved it there," his voice came out in a low whisper, "will I have any better chance of fixing this?"

Oberth gave a frustrated sigh and ground his teeth, "I don't know. Your chances are looking bleak no matter what you do with it."

"Edward," Tilly's cocky voice rang out, "I'm entirely unimpressed that your great brain is struggling here."

Ed's voice snapped back at her, "Shut up, stop belittling me when I'm thinking."

"Oh, he's embarrassed," the woman cast her gaze aside with a smirk, "nothing Hermann can say will fix this for you."

Folding his arms across his chest, Edward returned to glaring at the table once more. Leaning forward from his spot on the floor in front of the couch, Ed extended a cautious hand to the coffee table, "There…"

Brigitte bounced from her crossed legs to her knees and reached out to the table, "Yay!" her hand moved swiftly around the table, "king me!" she snatched up two of his three remaining red chips.

Oberth's face wrinkled, "Ouch…"

"Son of a…" Ed's hand slapped his face.

Tilly rolled her eyes, "That was pathetic," getting to her feet next to Brigitte, she strolled off, "I'm getting drinks, do the losers want anything?"

"Shut up," Ed grumbled.

Brigitte passed her glass to Oberth for a hand-off to Tilly, "More juice please Ma'am."

"Nothing for me," Oberth passed his wife the child's glass and proceeded to swat Edward upside the head, "you idiot, you keep giving her reasons to behave like that. Don't you realize that I have to go home with her later?"

Ed simply shook his head and glared across the table to Brigitte, "I suppose you want me to move that one so you can claim it too?"

"Please," she flashed a bright, white smile.

Rolling his eyes, Edward gave up his last game piece to the giggling girl sitting on the floor across the coffee table from him, "I'm never playing checkers with you again."

"Why not?" Brigitte began to sweep her chips back into the game box.

Ed stood up just long enough to sit himself back down on the couch, "Because you won every game."

"… So?"

"Play with Hermann next time," Edward gestured to the man joining him on the couch.

Oberth shook his head as well, "If we ever play again, we're doing it when my wife's not here."

"… Because you'll loose again too?" Brigitte tiled her head as she received a pair of unimpressed stares.

The attention of those gathered shifted to the unlocking of the door. The moment Hohenheim stepped through the front entrance, everyone, with the exception of Edward, greeted him.

"Good afternoon, Professor."

The out of school address stopped Hohenheim before his shoes ever came off. Finally, he simply laughed and hung up his coat, "My house is full for a Sunday. This is unusual."

Blowing out of the kitchen and cutting past Hohenheim with two drinks in her hands, Tilly called back, "Professor, perhaps you should enrol your son into some of these classes you and your colleagues teach. He seems to be loosing his wits."

"How many times have I told you to shut that noisy hole of yours today?" Edward barked at her as she sat down next to Brigitte on the floor once more.

"At least fifteen," she replied with a sly smile.

Hohenheim moved to stand behind the couch where Oberth and his son sat, "Perhaps I'll enrol him in edict classes so he can learn how to address women properly."

"Splendid idea."

"What the hell is wrong with you! Don't _encourage_ her!" Ed wailed as he glared over his shoulder at his father.

Hohenheim carried his entertained grin freely as he cut across the room and moved into his study.

Tilly sat in her place trying to control the growing grin, "I love your father. He's so much fun."

"Says you," Edward rolled his eyes.

"I don't think he likes me very much," Brigitte put the lid back onto the box containing her game, "he looks at me like my mother does when she thinks my sister or I are fibbing."

Oberth laughed at the statement, "Why would the Professor look at you that way?"

"I don't know."

At the snap of his fingers, Oberth turned his attention back to Ed, "Before I forget. Edward, I need you to pick up a few things before we get to work in the lab Tuesday. Most of the stuff is on your end of town, not mine; that's the only reason I ask."

"No that's fine; I'll leave my stuff at the University when I drop my dad off and then take the car."

Brigitte leaned her elbows on the table, "You got the car back?"

Ed's shoulders fell as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, "Yes, I got it back."

"Got it back?" Tilly's eyes glanced from Brigitte to Ed, "it went missing?"

"No."

"Edward lost it."

"Do you _ever_ want to come back in my house again?" Ed's eye twitched as he glared back at Brigitte's smiling feign of innocence.

Tilly glanced over to her husband who began to sit forward in his seat, "Oh come on, tell the story."

Standing up sharply, Ed trained his stubborn gaze upon the three guests, "It's a very long and uninteresting story. Nobody needs to know what happened to the car, and if someone thinks she's going to tell the story later…" his eyes followed Brigitte as she clasped her hands in her lap sweetly, "the kind Doctor Oberth here will stitch her lips shut."

Oberth blinked, "No I won't. I don't know this story."

Ed raised his hands into the air in frustration, "Then I'll tell the nuns about her adventures in the University."

The adult's eyes all fell to Brigitte, each with a different motive behind the gaze. The youngest within the house reached to the table and pulled her checkers box into her lap, "Don't look at me, I don't know anything."

* * *

"You can go out if you want. You don't need to stay in here and keep me company," Al commented, watching Winry shift once again where she sat.

"I'd rather not," Winry's eyes traveled around the library as she put her feet up on the arm of the couch. True, she would rather go out and do anything other than sit in the room for another day; but the miserable aura of the house, and not wanting to step foot outside fearing she'd get snatched up, made the decision to remain where she was fairly easy.

Alphonse shut his book and dropped it back down on the table, "Well you're making me uncomfortable."

"It makes me uncomfortable to be out there," Winry whined and pointed to a location beyond the closed library doors. Al couldn't argue with that since the house was a very uncomfortable place to be at the moment. Flowers and well wishes adorned many of the tables within the house, and there was a fair bit of discussion about the funeral the next morning that neither Al nor Winry felt they had any business being a part of. Although he had been invited, Al had initially turned down the offer. He did not feel it was his place to intrude upon the family that way. Only friends and family should be invited he said; he was simply their guest and would look out of place in attendance.

"You've stayed in here with me for two days already. Go shopping; you said you had things to buy. I don't need a babysitter," Al sat back in his seat and opened another book.

Rolling her eyes, Winry shook her head, "I'm not babysitting you."

His eyes still skimming the pages, Al's voice came off somewhat annoyed, "Then what are doing?" The extended silence that occurred from his comment caused Al to lift his eyes in question, "What?"

"Al, why did you and Izumi stay those extra few days at the stop before Central?"

"… 'Why'?" Al rested the book in his lap, "How did you know we were delayed there?"

Winry finally spun herself to sit up straight, "I was thinking about it yesterday when I called Dublith to let them know what was going on. You two left with Izumi, Sig and Meisun, but Sig said yesterday you stayed behind with Izumi at a station that was about six hours outside Central. He said Izumi didn't give a reason, and told the two of them to go on ahead."

"Oh…" closing yet another book, Al placed it down on top of the pile on the table, "well, we only stayed over night, not a few days. Our train arrived late and that didn't make Sensei happy at all," he gave a nervous laugh, "we missed the noon train, but there was a train leaving in the evening that we were going to transfer to. A couple hours before we got on, someone's rumour caught Sensei's attention. She told Sig and Meisun to go on ahead with me, but I told Sensei I was staying with her. We took a coach to the next town, which wasn't too far away, and Sensei was really unhappy to find out we'd wasted our time. At least we got back for the 9am train."

"Rumour?" Winry slouched forward in her seat, "What sort of rumour?"

Al looked up in thought, "Um… it had something to do with an alchemist and dolls coming to life. Just the way they said it, it upset Sensei enough for her to investigate. Turns out that the rumour was really old, not entirely accurate, and the man involved was dead. Sensei was not happy," he laughed nervously at the memory of his enraged teacher. Winry gave a slight nod as Al's voice spoke up once again, "Maybe if we hadn't gone looking, we would all be in Dublith by now."

Winry got up from the couch, moved over to the lounge chair Al had claimed for the past few days, and sat down on the arm, "Don't talk like that, there's no way you could have known any of this was going to happen."

Al's lost voice crept up again, "I don't know anything about what happened to her. I think I heard Mr. Mitchell get upset with someone on the phone because the witness statements went missing. It's such a big mess and nobody's getting anywhere with it," he trailed off as Winry wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Al," she said, stopping him before he could discourage himself any further, "it'll turn out alright, I promise."

Al let his shoulders fall as Winry remained as she was on the arm of the chair, "Winry?"

She gave a hum as her reply.

"Tomorrow..." his voice faded momentarily, "I'm going to go to Mrs. Mitchell's funeral."

Glancing down from her perch, Winry looked at him questioningly, "I thought you didn't want to go."

Slowly Al nodded, "I didn't, but he's insisted a few times, and I felt bad for him. I know his daughters aren't going; the older girl has been really withdrawn since she came to the house. Mr. Mitchell says that once he gets her talking and her mind distracted that she's very charming, but he doesn't want her at the funeral because it might upset her again. Their nurse is staying home to tend to the baby."

"Do you really want to go to another funeral?" Winry eyed him with concern, knowing how well he remembered the last.

Simply shrugging, Al resumed nodding his head, not wanting to think about it too much, "It's polite." He looked up at her, waiting for some sort of reply. Winry's head tilted to the side in thought. She sighed finally and let herself slide into the seat; squishing Al into the other soft arm. Al finally popped himself out from the spot. Winry didn't let him get far; reaching out, she wrapped her arms around his chest and pulled him back into her lap. Al stayed with her like that; silent, and leaning against her shoulder until his tension eased away, choosing to rest in the comfort of her arms. Giving his hair a brush with her hand, she felt him sigh and watched as he closed his eyes. Winry loved it like that; she loved how important it made her feel when Al would allow her to be his comfort. He didn't have to tell her what was wrong; she simply cherished being the one who could hold him until he felt better. As much as she'd wanted to change it, and as much as she tried, she had grown up on the outside. From such a horrible situation that had developed over so many years, Winry decided this was a small reward for perseverance; she refused to let anything damage that.  
"Al?"

He opened his eyes, "Hm?"

"You said that Ed might be stuck at the Gate, just like how we told you your body was, right?"

Al nodded slowly.

Winry tipped her head and rested a cheek on the top of Al's head, "I wonder if he's got people to keep him company there."

"I don't know," he gazed off across the room, "why?"

"I wonder who's keeping him in line if we're not there to make sure his head stays on straight."

* * *

As his side hit the ground, the corner of Ed's eye found the bottle. From his awkward position on the ground, Edward reached out and caught the glass object before it was given chance to shatter on the walk way. After a moment in the silence, Ed's forehead came to rest on the ground in relief, "I didn't want to buy another one…"

"Sir, I am dreadfully sorry. That was entirely my fault; I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking."

Turning over to face the man who had knocked him from his feet, Ed's bitter voice lashed out, "You should pay more att-" His sentence ended there. Ed's eyes told him to say nothing more as he looked into the face of the man on the ground next to him.

"… I know you," the man finally said cautiously, eyeing Edward as he tried to produce a name. Both men finally came to their knees and began repackaging the paper bag Ed had been carrying, "You're Hohenheim's son, aren't you? Edward?"

"Yeah," He watched as the man got to his feet, and then extended a hand to help Ed up. Once on his feet, Edward straightened his vest and returned the paper bag to the place in his arm, "And you're Rudolf Hess?" It was not a face he could have easily forgotten.

"At least we know each other's name, that's a good start," He gave a musing grin, brushing the sandy blonde curls in his hair, "you don't have classes in this block?"

Ed adjusted the bag, his response sounding flat and disinterested, "I'm not taking any classes."

His brow frowning with confusion, Hess gave Edward a curious eye; "I've seen you around campus this term, and last term. What do you do there if you don't study?"

"I work for my father. Various office work…" Ed shrugged, the back of his mind trying to understand why he was having a conversation with someone he would have rather not ever have encountered. Yet, much to his surprise, the man's voice was not challenging, not critical or cynical; simply curious. He didn't like how comfortable the conversation was.

"You're his secretary?"

Ed scoffed at that, "He can get up and answer the telephone or the door himself. My help will only go so far, I'm not his servant boy."

"I suppose that's alright then," the comment made Hess laugh and shake his head, "where are you headed to?"

Ed reached into his pocket to pull out the list Oberth had given him. Skimming over the lines, mentally checking off everything he'd picked up already. His eyes hit the last line; at the second reading of his final instructions Edward's expression fell grossly unimpressed.

"What?"

"I'm going to the 'corner store' to get 'something chocolate' and 'something chocolate and caramel'," he slammed the list into his pocket, "that idiot."

Hess couldn't keep himself from laughing at Edward's exasperated tone, "Well, I have to pass the convenience stores on this block; I'll walk with you."

Not being in a position to gracefully escape the situation, Ed had no alternative other than to take the man up on his offer. He turned down the sidewalk; shopping bag cradled in his left arm and Hess at his other side. The longer the two walked in silence, the more awkward Ed felt about the man's presence; entirely unsure on anything to say to the man. He simply wished that a store would pop up on the block that he could duck into.

"I heard a confusing rumour," Hess' seemingly harmless voice finally caught Ed's attention as their pace slowed, "your father doesn't particularly talk about you at the meetings, but some of his closer associates, like Karl, have mentioned things about your right arm."

Ed blinked, rather surprised by the odd statement. Adjusting the bag in his left arm, he caught the right glove with a finger and slipped it off his mechanical hand, "You mean this?"

"That is… a real mechanical hand…?" Hess' tone raved with wonder, his steps ground to nearly a halt. His eyes traveled from the hand up Edward's arm, "And that goes all the way to your shoulder?"

In no mood to roll his sleeve up, Ed simply nodded, "My father and I had the blue print drafted a long time before I ever had it put on. It wasn't until we came to Germany that I ended up completing it."

"You lived all those years in London without that prosthetic arm?"

His urge to correct everyone and coin the thing an AutoMail constantly made his cheek twitch before he finally responded, "I managed, I had help," his gaze cast aside for a moment before rolling his eyes and dawning a booming sarcastic, bitter tone to disguise a humbling memory, "the great Professor Hohenheim of Munich's University did not let his challenged son do too many things on his own."

Hess raised his brow at the statement, "That's probably because there weren't too many things you could do with a disability like that, like tying your shoe laces or your hair."

"I have always been perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I was not an invalid," Ed gave his snippy response to the situation and made it clear that he would have nothing more to willingly contribute to the conversation. He hated being labelled disabled almost as much as he had hated being called short.

Being swift enough to catch that Ed was not going to entertain the issue any longer; Hess kept himself amused for a moment, wondering just how much bite came with Edward's easily roused bark. Realizing it was time to find a new topic, Hess chose something more to his liking.

"Speaking of your father, I'm curious about something," he slid his hands into his pockets, "I find it really strange that your father is such an active member in Thule, but he is not involved with the Party at all."

Edward wrinkled his nose at the thought, "He doesn't want to carry political obligations. He did that in England and decided he'd had enough of that when we came to Germany. But even with that, Thule is the foundation for the Nazi Party; he is involved, even if his name's not on the sheet."

Hess gave a frown at the situation, "If it were anyone else in the Society, it would look extremely bad on their part. I just don't want anyone to get the wrong impression of your father, he's a great mind to rely upon."

Looking up into the mid-day sun, Ed narrowed his eyes, "Shouldn't it work both ways? The vast majority of higher-ups in the Nazi Party are members of Thule, except your Fuhrer."

From the corner of his eye, Ed caught Hess' instant displeasure of his statement; "The reason no one questions your father is the same reason no one questions Adolf for not joining Thule. Both men are extremely well respected in their positions. No offence to your father, but Adolf is a far greater man and your father's motives would be questioned long before Adolf's ever will be. He will change this country for the better long before anything your father does has any impact," Hess turned his gaze over to Edward, the anger that Edward would have the gall to compare anyone else to Adolf Hitler vivid in his eyes, "it would look best for your family if you two came out and cast ballots in the November vote."

Not wanting to hold an uneasy silent moment with Hess, Ed gave his answer, "I'll talk to my dad."

At that, Hess's tone abruptly returned to the prior pleasant demeanour; as if the last minutes had not existed, "And yourself? Why do you stay in your father's shadow in all this?"

Ed raised his free hand in defence, "I am a scientist who's blissfully ignorant of politics."

Hess laughed again at Edward's statements but and was unwilling to accept such a sentiment, "Well how about this," he stopped Ed before he could slip into the store, "myself, Adolf, Albrecht and Lord knows how many other people are going to a Bavarian League meeting tonight, we're going out for drinks afterwards, you're welcome to join us. I'll introduce you to the man who'll lead this country one day. I'm sure you'll like his poise."

Ed ran 'Bavarian League' meeting through his head, trying to figure out what it was, "Hermann and Tilly might need me late…" after he's spoken, the thought of what Hess considered 'entertainment' suddenly came into consideration. He would have continued to form an excuse if Hess had not stopped him.

Taking a card and pen from his pocket, Hess left a note on the card and tucked it into the pocket on Ed's vest, "I think it would be a wise move on your part to drop by."

The non-negotiable statement left Edward without an alternative.

* * *

Breezing down the stairs, Winry slammed her face into the windows to the side of the front doors; her reaction growing more distraught as she watched the last of the funeral attendees pull away from the yard.

"… How'm I going to find it now?" she slouched up against the window frame for a moment before sulking her way back up the stairs, "what a stupid big house. How do they keep track of anything in here?" Dragging her feet back into the guest room lent out to her, Winry looked around the room that she'd turned into an utter disaster. Sheets had been tossed around the room, and accessories had been thrown across the floor; she'd even gone so far as to pull the bed away from the wall.

"This is so annoying!" Winry screamed in frustration as she grabbed onto her hair. Her inability to find the black tool bag she carried was getting more frustrating by the minute. The aggravation she had been crying out was abruptly silenced by the emergence of the baby's cry. With an overly guilty conscience, Winry poked her head out into the hall; her eyes darted around the floor, wondering if there was anyone left to snap at her for disturbing the baby. Pushing aside her frustrations, Winry glared a circle around the room, "I give up. I'll find it later," at that, she snuck out into the hall – echoing of the baby's cry.

Winry made her way quickly down the hall, half expecting someone to pop out of a room to scold her for being too old to throw tantrums. The memories of Izumi's voice crashing down on her each time she'd throw a fit at a malfunctioning device left her constantly on edge. Izumi had become the brass knuckles that ensured Roze's baby had peace whenever it napped.

Easily able to find the baby's room from the crying, the door decorated with a pastel hanging reading 'Baby's Room' left Winry without a doubt she was in the right place. Turning the door handle, she took a few steps in; suddenly engulfed by the overwhelmed size of the baby's room. Though the decorations were lovely, and the early day's light filtered through the blinds, the room was massive. Winry reminded herself that she should have expected such a thing, since all of the rooms were large. The baby's crib was displayed as a trophy within the centre of the room. Silently approaching the newly constructed and polished wooden crib, Winry leaned against the rails and peered down at the crying infant.

"Hi baby, I'm so sorry I made you cry. Did I wake you from a good dream?" she cooed at the child, reaching a hand into the crib to stroke the child's soft cheek. Much to Winry's surprise, the child seemed to calm down at her presence, "… or were you just lonely?" her lips curled up amused, wondering if she'd been had, "you heard me make all that noise, and you just cried so I'd come and grace you with my presence? What a sneaky little girl you are!"

Slipping her other arm into the crib, Winry moved to pick up the child.

"Don't do that."

Not given a chance to lift the child from it's spot, Winry ripped her arms from the crib and spun around; her startled, wide eyes glanced around the room as her back hit the crib rails. Her head shot around until her vision fell upon a wooden rocking chair in the far corner. Silently, Winry looked at the newest little girl in the Mitchell family; the child's wide blue eyes returned the gaze, holding vigil over the bedroom intruder as the chair rocked silently. Standing in the uncomfortable silence, Winry stared at the girl from her frozen position; examining the long brown hair falling over the black dress and stuffed animal held in the child's arms. She could not determine if the striking eyes the little girl had were holding back the emotions of the last few days or something much different.

"The nurse didn't want Alphonse holding the baby for very long. She won't be happy if you pick her up without permission."

Winry's eyes narrowed in thought, trying to remember when Al held the baby. Changing her train of thought, Winry forced a smile for the little girl, "If you were here with the baby the whole time, why didn't you try and stop her crying?"

"I didn't make her cry." Normally expecting such a response to carry a stubborn tone, the voice gave Winry the impression she was stating a fact rather than making an accusation. The little girl rocked slowly in the chair, sunlight coming through the blinds catching her necklace with each rock, "I shouldn't touch the baby either right now. She's tired."

Examining the child with strong discretion, Winry wondered if the little girl had any idea how to deal with a baby in the first place. She moved to crouch down in front of the chair the girl rocked in; projecting an encouraging smile Winry spoke up, "She's your baby sister now, right? That means that if she's crying, you're supposed to help her. Your daddy and nurse should show you how to change her diaper and hold her bottle so she's okay. If she cries, you're supposed to worry about her, because she's important; just like you. That's what a good big sister would do."

With the tilt of her head, the child's blue eyes stared back at Winry, "Are you Alphonse's big sister?"

Her eyes softened with the question as a hand brushed her own blonde hair aside, "Not exactly. I'd like to think we could be brother and sister… I don't know if I'm doing a good job or not," Winry's voice faded in thought, "I'm sure he'd be more comfortable with Ed than anyone else… but I think I do okay."

"Ed?" the child's eyes grew more curious.

Winry found herself nervously laughing at the child's mention of Ed's name, "Al's older brother, his real brother. He went on a journey, so I get to play older sibling until he gets back."

"You're a replacement then?"

Despite the innocence in the child's voice, Winry could not lessen the impact of the words. Her shoulders started to fall along with her expression; someone's jagged fingernail was clawing a tear in her chest. Lightly chewing on her lip, Winry could not bring herself to give an answer; she did not want to tell herself that she was only the second best thing.

Not until the voice spoke, did Winry realize that someone else was in the room, "What are you doing in here?"

Snapping her head to the nurse in the door, Winry crouched silent in the room before reaching her hands out and placing them on the child's knees in the chair, "We were just talking about being big sisters." She wondered if anyone else caught how much her voice struggled.

"Young lady, no one in this room needs coaching from you. That is why I live in this house."

Somewhat spooked by the empty and cold gaze from the nurse's disposition, Winry rose to her feet as the nurse came to stand behind her. She watched for a moment while the woman stared into the baby's crib; finally she moved back to the crib, "If that's why you live in this house, why didn't you come when the baby cried? Isn't that your job too?"

Her sentence barely finished, the back of the nurse's hand struck viciously across Winry's face, "It is not your place to question me. Nor is it your house to question the people within. I do not want someone like you involved with these children."

"Ma'am..." the little girl's eyes stared up to the nurse.

Winry's lightly trembling hand held her cheek, her defensive spine suddenly kicking in. She glanced at the girl long enough to catch the unimpressed look on her face before turning to the baby's attendant, "What the hell is your problem? I came in here to make sure the baby was okay, something you don't seem to care too much about. If you hit these children too I will make sure that-."

"Miss. Rockbell, isn't it?" without flinching at Winry's words, the nurse reached into the crib and pulled out the infant child. Cradling it in her arms she turned to Winry, "it certainly has been fortunate Mr. Mitchell has not found out about the arrest warrant issued for you."

Her eyes widened.

"It would be a shame for your, and poor Alphonse's, sake if he managed to discover this. There may only be two military officers assigned to the case, and a low profile case at that, but-" her empty eyes fell over Winry. Shivering at the gaze, Winry spun on her heels to escape the aura. Without a word to anyone remaining in the room, she marched out into the hallway. Before slamming the door, Winry paused and looked back into the room, her eyes falling with concern to the girl now standing a few feet away from her nurse. Simply wanting to get away from the room, Winry slapped a firm look onto her face.

"If you happen to find my tool bag, could you return it to me, please and thank you."

She slammed the door.

* * *

From the far corner of the room, Ed stood, arms folded, and a sceptical look on his face. Lurking in his position Ed visually canvassed the room once again; its aging wooden stage, string drawn mauve curtains and wooden chairs holding rows and rows of properly dressed men. Having no urge to mingle, Ed simply stood in his place, watching the hall quickly fill. He'd wished that his father had been home earlier; having passed on the opportunity to ask Oberth what he was getting himself into, he'd been disappointed Hohenheim was not around to brief him.

"Your father is far more social than you are, Edward."

Instantly recognizing the voice, Ed turned his attention to see Hess approaching.

"We have seats down the middle isle, come join us," Hess's hand came to land on Edward's shoulder.

"I'm fine where I am, I'm just going to observe."

Hess raised his eyebrows questioningly at Edward's motives, "You should sit down somewhere not so far back, especially dressed like that," he took a hold of Ed from under his arm and pulled him away from the corner, "you're going to get mistaken in that coat."

"My coat?" Ed staggered along after Hess, pushing his way through the growing crowd.

With a hand sweeping across the landscape of the room, Hess spoke up again, "All of these men dressed in brown jackets are Sturmabteilung," catching the continued confusion that Ed held in his eyes, Hess slapped his hand around Ed's upper arm, "In those dim lights at the back of the room, the only thing distinguishing you from some of them is the lack of our swastika," he patted Ed's arm.

"That's the Brown Coats…" his voice tried to hide his concern, having heard of these men before. Feeling Hess pull on his arm once more, Ed continued to follow, "Then, your Party's meeting tonight is going-"

Ed was cut off long before he could finish his statements, "This is not a Nazi Party meeting, Edward," he ushered Ed down a row of seated patrons and followed close behind, "this is a Bavarian League meeting. I guess you can best call us the opposition."

Standing before his new seat, Ed scanned the crowd that surrounded him, "Half these people are your people though," his voice not yet sounding alarmed, simply perplexed.

"That's right," Hess concurred, sitting down at his seat, "how can your opponent voice himself over such strong opposition?"

With caution, Ed began to sit down in his seat, only to be stopped by the uproar of voices calling from the main entrance. He straightened up to watch a dark haired man, not much taller than himself, blow into the room, marching with a military stride down the centre isle of the hall – and much to the approval of many attendees. Edward did not immediately register Albrecht Haushofer following quickly behind him.

"Hess," the man's voice commanded as he turned to face down the isle where Ed stood. Before Hess stood up to cut their line of sight, Edward and the man with a tuff of a moustache under his nose stared questioningly at each other.

"There are seats for you here," Hess called out, standing up to grab their attention.

Before he could sit down, a voice that had always grated on his nerves called out, "My Lord, Edward, I never thought I'd see you here!" Albrecht stepped into the row before the man he followed could, looking to claim the empty seat next to Ed.

If he thought he could get away with showing visual disgust for the son of one of his father's closest friends, Ed would have. Forcing out a smile, Ed figured he better entertain the young Haushofers presence, "Good evening, Hoffie."

Nearly tripping over his own two feet as he pushed his way past seated people, Albrecht barked back at him, "Edward! Could you show some courtesy towards me in public at least?"

Ed did not feel like replying to that statement yet again.

"Edward," Hess quickly grabbed Ed's attention. As Hess sat down in his seat, he motioned to the man now standing before an empty seat two spots away. His eyes such a deep brown they appeared as black as his slicked hair and lengthy trench coat. Though he was not towering, nor did he carry a build that was anything but ordinary; Ed again looked into to the man's conquering gaze that stared down upon him from the corner of his eyes, "This is Adolf Hitler."

At the snap of his fingers, Albrecht chimed in with pride, "He's our new Fuhrer, replacing that useless Harrer."

As he stood up, Edward watched the man's no-nonsense expression subside. Ed could tell from the aura he carried; not only did every supporter in the room place him in high regard, Adolf himself deliberately stood high upon everyone else's shoulders. Locked in analysis of his prowess, Ed extended his hand across Hess' seat, "Pleasure to meet you, Sir."

"It's always good to have a man with strong eyes like yours stand along side my men," at that, Adolf took Ed's hand to shake.

Ed froze the moment he realized what he'd done. Hess caught the instant look of question upon Adolf; before Ed could stop him or Hess could speak, Adolf had grabbed Edward by the cold metal wrist and ripped the protective glove from his hand. The four men stood unmoving in their places, three of them quite startled by the actions of the superior. Raising an eyebrow before looking up, Adolf connected his demanding gaze of questions to Edward's glare of defence. Ed jerked his arm twice before Adolf would relent the hold on his wrist.

"This is Hohenheim's son, Edward Elric," Hess finally stepped in, having become nervous from Ed's demeanour towards his superior.

Not letting his interest slide, Adolf did not address Hess, "Is there a reason behind your robotic arm or do I get to remain in wonder?"

"Wonder all you like," Ed's stubbornly defensive posture intensified, disliking the feeling of being overpowered by anyone.

From behind Edward, Albrecht moved to his feet quickly, even more so on edge than Hess had become, "Edward's whole arm is like that. His left leg is artificial too. He's got a lot of strength to endure like this, don't you think?"

Adolf finally relented in the situation, "Quite," was all he provided, not feeling that he owed either statement a dignifying answer. With more pressing issues on his mind, he turned to Hess, "Rudolf, would you accompany me to my car?"

"Of course. Edward, will you keep our seats?"

Finally taking his own seat, Ed sat down with a nod; not as if there could be any choice in the matter. His eyes watched both men's movements carefully as they made their way past other seated patrons. Upon returning to the isle, Hess and Adolf marched in stride towards the exit. Ed made no secret that he'd returned the same interrogating gaze Adolf placed upon him as he looked back to the seats.

Albrecht and Ed turned forward as the men disappeared behind the doors; their attentions grabbed by the uproar of voices emanating from the front of the room. Ed sat higher in his seat, attempting to see the man moving across the stage more clearly.

"What a pathetic little man," Albrecht moved to his feet, glaring at the finely dressed gentleman crossing the stage, "he waited for Adolf to leave the room before he showed his face. How can these men follow someone who has no courage to stand up for himself!"

Ed finally moved to his feet within the uproar of people, both supporters and non-supporters alike; it was unclear which section's noise was louder. The overflowing hall of people watched as the man stood bewildered upon the centre of the stage, the look of astonishment and fear clearly present in his eyes. From within the chatter, the hall doors were once again thrown open. Pushing his way through the congested path of his own supporters, Adolf, with an entourage of his army's men, powered his way down the centre isle.

Not noticing the re-entry within the noise, Ed continued to watch the men at the front rows harass not only the man who was to speak on stage, but many other audience members as well.

"This is ridiculous," Ed's disgusted voice was not loud enough for Albrecht to hear, "I have better things to waste my time on than this."

Turning to make the attempt at an exit, Edward unwillingly stopped when the chants for Hitler to take the podium erupted. Trying to push past the crammed masses of people, Ed's eyes once again caught sight of the man they cheered for. He watched as Adolf commanded the uprising simply by existing in the room. It was then that Edward noticed the armbands more than half of the attendees wore on their sleeves as they raised their arms in chant. Startled by the display, Ed gripped his unbranded arm where Hess' hand had momentarily been placed earlier.

"I will not step aside."

The attentions in the room shifted to the stage.

"This is our meeting. We organized it, and we paid for the hall. Shut up or get out-"

Ed heard no more from the man on the stage, the uproar of the crowd was deafening. From the corner of his eye, Adolf caught Edward's attention once more; the man slammed his way through the people crowding the centre path to the stage without obvious provocation. His entourage followed closely behind, growing as more people in the room crushed forward.

Unable to move within the suffocating crowd of shuffling bodies, Edward stepped onto the seat of a wooden chair; an action he noticed Albrecht and others had done as well. He again watched while Hitler's thugs overpowered the Bavarian officers. It was Adolf himself climbing uncontested to the stage, charging at the speaker.

Standing frozen atop the chair, Ed watched the Bavarian League attendees retaliate upon any unrecognizable face the moment Hitler's fist struck their speaker. Edward's eyes dilated and suddenly shot around the room; realizing he stood at the middle of anarchy crashing down upon the hall.

* * *

Though only given one chance to burn it into his memory, Al could not have forgotten the place, "Can we stop the car?" he asked, the undertone of panic setting into his voice.

Slowly applying the break, his driver looked into the backseat, "Sir, did you forget something?"

His eyes focused on the ageless yellow brick house, the freshly painted surrounding fence, and luscious green grass, "Yes I did," came his distant reply.

Pulling the car into an alley on the other side of the street, the driver used the roadway to turn the car around. Al's eyes raced around the car as the house turned around him moving himself from one seat to another to not loose focus on it.

"No, wait. Stop." If it had not been for his heart pounding in his throat, Al would have been able to catch his breath. The moment he felt the car come to a full stop, Al found himself suddenly as inactive as the vehicle he was within.

"Sir?"

Al finally turned to the driver, "I'm getting out here. Please let Mr. Mitchell know where I am."

Startled by the announcement, the driver immediately protested, "You can't do that. I was instructed to take you directly back to the Mitchell Family home once the reception was finished."

"Tell Mr. Mitchell that I had to return something to Ms. Hughes. Tell him I'll call when I'm ready to be picked up," Al's face tightened, "I told him a few days ago that I needed to come here, but when his wife died I couldn't inconvenience him with this. I'm here now; I don't want to cause a greater burden on anyone than I've already been."

The driver sat silent at Al's request, looking ready to protest.

"Please, just tell him that," Al's hands pushed open the car door uncontested.

"He knows the number to contact you at if this does not meet his approval?"

Reaching back for the black suit jacket leant to him, Al gave an affirmative response, and shut the door. Squaring off at his adversarial location from across the street, Al's expression hardened as his fists clenched. Cutting across the afternoon street, he slipped himself into the unlatched yard gates; he watched the car speed off down the road over his shoulder. Facing forward, he stood in front of the house, wondering how best to proceed. He had no idea where to start, though knocking on the door was a good first step, he suddenly felt too nervous to get that far. Behind him the gate had clicked shut, and a child's sharp ears must have heard the sound; before having the opportunity to move up the sidewalk, Elysia ran around the corner of the house.

"Yay! It's Al!" he finally caught sight of her by the voice, Al looked down with enough time to see the imp attach herself to his right hand, "Did you come to play too?"

The innocence of her childish speech let the nerves slip away, "We can play, I don't mind."

"You can be the…" Elysia brought a critical hand to her chin as she thought of an appropriate title for Al, "you'll be the Detective!" she announced, tugging on his long sleeved white shirt, "cause you're dressed nice like one."

A trickle of sweat ran down Al's cheek as he giggled nervously, "That's not exactly why I'm dressed like-" both children's attentions were stolen by the high shrilled scream coming from the other side of the house. Al stepped forward in concern, but his motions were stopped by Elysia; standing steadfast in place with a grin on her face.

"Sheska can be the cleaning lady!"

Not given a chance to exclaim 'who?' a scrambling flurry of arms and legs appeared from behind the house walls, "Elysia! Don't run off like that, your Mom will get mad at me," Sheska's voice pleaded.

Suddenly clinging tight to bewildered Al's hand, Elysia shook her head stubbornly, "Nuh-uh, Al's here now. He's the Detective and he can look after me cause I'm a girl who needs detective things done. You can be the cleaning lady who like to bring tea and biscuits!"

Sheska's hands slapped down onto her knees, huffing to catch her breath, "Why am I always the maid?" straightening herself and taking Elysia by the hand, she turned her attention to Al, "I'm sorry, was there something I can help you with?"

Lost within the whole situation, Al put his hand behind his head and gave a light laugh, "Actually, I was looking for Ms. Hughes."

Sheska's face fell upon recognition of his voice, her eye twitched while she tried to refrain from screaming in front of Elysia.

"I'll go get Mummy! I'll tell her Al is here!" Elysia took her hand away from the startled Sheska and ran through the front door.

Al's grin grew, amused once again by Elysia's endless reserve of bouncing energy. His eyes were stolen from watching her run through the door by Sheska's hand, grabbing him at the chin and facing him towards her.

"Alphonse Elric?" Sheska's eyes grew wide, leaning in to be nose to nose with him.

Startled by her recognition, Al's hand swatted her grip away and he stepped back. Though her wide eyes were filled with curiosity, Al's simply reflected unease and hints of panic. Scrambling to find an answer for her sudden comment, Sheska spoke up again.

"Wow… Winry wasn't kidding. I would never have guessed you would look like this," her hands came over her face, obviously overcome by his presence before her.

Al finally narrowed his widened eyes, entirely confused by her statement, "Who are you?"

"Sheska," she answered and leaned curiously in to Al, "I thought your eyes would be yellow like Edward's."

Again stepping back from her intrusion, he stood defensive, unsure of where to take the conversation, "You're… the girl Winry writes lett-"

"Oh my God! Winry," Sheska's hands slammed down over her head, "I haven't heard from her in days, I hope she got out of town okay," her face soured abruptly, "she could have at least called and told me she was alright because obviously the Brig. General hasn't found her yet."

Al's face twisted in confusion, "… Winry's staying with me," he said flatly, perplexed by whatever it was Sheska was talking about.

Sheska's expression fell crooked, "With you? Then she found you! Oh thank goodness, she was so stressed that someone was going to find you and question you and harass you and maybe hurt you or dissect you or… WAIT," Sheska's hands came onto Al's shoulders firmly, her eyes still wide with questions. Al sunk away from her, a sweatdrop running down his cheek, "why are you here to see Ms. Hughes?"

"I..." Al side glanced to the door to see if either Elysia or Gracia had shown up, "I came to talk with her, she invited me back if I ever wanted to talk."

"You've been here before!"

Al eyed her with some concern, "Yes…"

"She's seen you like this?"

"Yes…"

Sheska's head dropped in relief, "Thank goodness I'm not the only one who knows about this."

A sudden suspicion crawled into Al's mind, growing unsure if they were both thinking with the same train of thought. Before he could question her, a voice interrupted them.

"What are you going on about now, Sheska?" Ms. Hughes stepped out from her front door, eyeing the pair standing on her lawn. The characteristic warm smile came across her face, delighted by what she saw in her yard, "Alphonse, you look so nice today."

Al glanced down at himself, dressed in the black dress pants, white top, tie and black jacket in his arms, "Thank you, but…" he smiled nervously, feeling the blush return to his cheeks.

Gracia giggled at his reaction and knelt down in front of him, "I'm glad you came back to see me, you're looking so much better than the last time I saw you. You've been getting along alright at the Mitchell residence… with all that's been going on?" her eyes grew concerned at the thought.

"It's been fine, Winry's been with me the last few days," Al replied to her quietly, catching the faint garden scent she had when he spoke.

"Has she?" Gracia's eyes became distracted by news of Winry; her gaze falling to the side as she processed the statement, "that's good to know." She nodded slowly and turned over her shoulder, "Sheska, Elysia wants to make tea again for Alphonse, since he liked it so much last time," she reached out, took Al's jacket from his arms and stood up, "lets go inside and sit at the table for her. We can talk for a bit, maybe invite Winry to join us," she ushered Al ahead of herself and Sheska into the house.

Climbing up the few steps, Al turned back once he stood in the doorway, "Um… could we call Winry later?" he asked hesitantly, not wanting her to find out he'd gone to see Ms. Hughes just yet.

"Yeah," Sheska chimed in while Al's questioning eyes fell upon her as if she intruded on his privacy.

Ms. Hughes stopped before stepping up her porch stairs, "Why would you two want to exclude her?"

Sheska's expression softened, disheartened by the train of thought, "Well if Ed comes up…" Al's startled reaction couldn't get words out soon enough to stop her, "she gets upset sometimes when people talk about him in past tense."

"Past tense?" the moment Gracia caught the horrified look in Alphonse's eyes the jacket fell from her arms; her hands came up to cup her mouth. Turning sharply to Sheska, Gracia suddenly realized the impact of what had been said, "Oh no…" her voice and hands shook while her eyes turned back to Al in the doorway. She froze her movements realizing he no longer stood there, "Sheska… you just…"

Turning her eyes from Ms. Hughes to the emptiness of the doorway, Sheska's face fell pale, "I thought that you… I mean, he said that…"

Snatching the jacket up from where it had fallen Gracia rushed inside the house, the swift movement displacing her fine strands of brown hair. Her voice called out in alarm, unsure where he may have gone within her house, "Alphonse!"

**

* * *

**

To Be Continued...

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**  
R&R is loved and appreciated.

Al does know Ed died, and he disappeared into the house because that's what little Al does when he's upset and he doesn't know how to deal with a situation. He has a lot of childishness reset back into his personality and a lot of inexperience. The issue of Ed is very important to him. As for Gracia's reaction, she knows -something- is up with Al, but doesn't know what exactly.

I'm going to try and refrain from calling Hitler "Hitler". I'll refer to him as Adolf unless I'm going for some story effect. Referring to a character as "Hitler" comes with a pre-determined mental image. It's almost as if it's no longer a name, but an identifying title with a definition. That's the best way I can describe it.

"Harrer" – Karl Harrer. Original leader of the Nazi party.

Sturmabteilung – also known as the "Brown Coats". The name of the early Nazi army.

**Chapter 58 Feedback**

AmunRa – Guilty pleasure :: Ed and Hohenheim relationship

Zrana – I have nothing to say to you... X3

chibi-sherri - lmao, fic is not better than Harry Potter X3. Research is fun when it has nothing to do with school or something job related... too bad I can't be lazy all the time.

n.n thanks to everyone for making me feel like I'm doing good with this!


	9. The Warmth Of

**He Who Searches For Himself**

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* * *

**

_It was as reclusive and hidden a spot as Ed could find, curled up on the floor beside his bed with the belief that if anyone looked into the room this late at night, they would not suspect a thing from the empty bed. The child's room was silent now, a far contrast from the noise moments before. To preserve this serenity, Ed attempted to hold his breath for as long as he could; occasionally failing in his attempts. He hoped that no one could hear him shivering from an unexplainable chill he could feel over his body. It was his mother that broke the silence, calling his name within the room. The concern in her voice was not a feint to lure him out, yet he was still afraid to face her. He curled up tighter into his little ball, hoping, praying that the feet moving across his bedroom floor would not come close enough to find him. _

_"Edward…"_

_The voice of his mother was saturated with concern and relief once realizing his location. In the moonlit bedroom in the middle of an open field within Rizembool, Trisha picked up her son as he started to cry._

_"Where does it hurt?"_

_"My head," he choked out, his face buried in her chest. Not wanting to harm his tiny pride any more than her discovery of him had done; Trisha did not ask what had happened. She knew; she also knew the man she would scold for insisting their little boy would not roll out of his first bed. Sitting at the edge of the mattress, Trisha stroked her fingers through his downy soft hair while Edward continued to cling to her, "Mommy I'm cold." His words were given no response; distracted by the reflection Trisha caught in her son's window, she turned slowly over her shoulder, eyes filling with disapproval._

_Hohenheim's nervous reaction to the look was apparent in the expression on his face, he knew what she would say the moment they heard the thud on the floor._

_"I told you…" her hand continued to smooth over Edward's hair as she delivered the speech, "he was going to fall out if you didn't put a guard of some sort on the side."_

_Knowing he could not argue the points with his wife, Hohenheim sat down next to her at the foot of the bed. With a kiss to both their foreheads, he offered his apology, "I'm sorry, you were right. Here…" with the light clasp of his hands out of sight from Ed's prying eyes, Hohenheim touched the wooden bed frame to initiate the transmutation that would appease the situation. The couple looked over their shoulders to the light wooden rail that now enclosed the middle portion of the bed._

_"I don't want that," Ed's tiny voice spoke out as he peered around his mother to the additions on his bed, "I'm a big boy."_

_"Yes you are," Trisha encouraged his train of thought, "and even big boys sometimes need help to not fall out of bed. Don't you remember when we were on the train a few months ago? We slept in the cabins and those beds had sides for the even bigger people, like Mommy and Daddy."_

_Both parents caught the sceptical and teary eyed reaction of their over tired and bruised son. Hohenheim took Edward from Trisha's arms and placed his son, on the verge of tears, upon his knees, "Edward, why are you crying again? I thought you told me big boys don't cry?"_

_Nothing in the world would give him cause to contradict the fact that he was a big boy, Ed used another excuse to save face, "My head hurts."_

_"Where does it hurt?"_

_Ed's hand came up to the left side of his face, covering most of his eye. Hohenheim pulled his son's hand away and took a closer look, "It's just a little red around your eye," his hand softly brushed over the tender part of his boy's upper cheek with a thumb and finger. His other hand cupped the good side of Edward's face and Hohenheim gave the cheek a pat of encouragement, "you'll be better than new when the sun comes up, I promise."_

_From his perch atop the man's knees, Edward felt his father's warm hand cradle his frozen cheek. The excessive warmth he could feel gave the little body an obvious shiver, which no one noticed. While his parents spoke to each other, Ed began to wonder why his father's hand was heated like that. Distancing himself from their conversation, he softly closed his eyes and tried to absorb the warmth into his body. At the mention of his name in their conversation, Ed felt his father's hand lift and pat him on the cheek yet again. He flinched, cracking his eyes open with the harder pat he received._

_Hohenheim's attention returned to his son, noticing how he'd reacted to his hand, "Edward, are you okay?"_

_Pausing at the odd and overly concerned tone in his father's voice, Edward's puzzled eye watched his father stare back at him, the man's gaze laden with concern. Before long, he felt the familiar warm hand return to his cheek._

_"Daddy…?" with curious, wide eyes, Ed's voice came quietly, hoping his father would explain what had him so disconcerted._

_The little voice brought a pause to Hohenheim's actions. Nothing was heard; neither sound nor movement was made. Ed simply stared back at his father's humbled expression, uncertain what to make of the soft smile that soon crossed the elder man's face. Hohenheim's warm hand came up and brushed through his young son's curtain of bangs for a few moments before returning to holding the chilled, round cheek once more. Edward's expression relaxed with content; enjoying the undivided attention he was receiving from his father, yet still unable to wrap his boggled mind around any answer. He watched from the corner of his eye as Hohenheim's hand lifted from his cheek to pat him once again._

**Chapter 60 – The Warmth Of…**

"Come on Edward, wake up," Hohenheim's voice coaxed; his hand connected with Ed's cheek once more, finally carrying enough force to wake him.

Ed rolled his head away from the slap after it made contact. He tried to open his eyes, only to find himself staring through a haze at a brick wall. Not bothering to understand why his left eye wasn't opening, Edward felt the chill again the moment his father's warm hand came to his cheek and turned his head forward.

"Edward, are you okay?" Hohenheim repeated, still leaning over his son.

The list of questions mounted until a layer of fog cleared in Ed's head; realizing he lay upon a cold cement floor, staring up at his father within a poorly lit room. He wondered if there was more to it than that, but couldn't get his mind to concentrate long enough.

"Get moving old man, I'll lock you in here too if you don't get your ass in gear."

"Now you listen here, if you want to keep that tongue of yours…"

Ed winced at the pair of loud, unidentifiable voices now ringing in his ears. For the moment he was able to think about it, something familiar existed in the retaliator's voice. The desperate urge to go back to sleep, despite how easily the cold cement filtered through the back of his dress shirt, kept his mind from focusing on it.

"I need you to sit up," Hohenheim's voice came out far quieter but more clearly than the other men barking at each other. He put a hand at Ed's shoulders and helped him to a sitting position. The sudden change in equilibrium within his head brought Ed's hand to the left side of his face where a concentration of pain existed.

"What the hell…" a viciously pounding headache swept through Edward's skull.

Crouching down at his left side, Hohenheim put his son's clutching left hand on his own shoulder and slipped his arm around Ed's back, "On your feet. Hold onto my shoulder." The moment Hohenheim felt Ed's hand grip onto his shirt, he rose to his feet, pulling Edward up with him.

Swaying off balance by the abrupt change in posture, Ed did not understand why his father was being so careful helping him to his feet. Taking a balancing step towards the man, Edward's left foot never hit the ground. Tumbling off balance into his father's side, Hohenheim's grip tightened around his son as he tried to re-steady him. Uncontrollably, Ed began to shiver.

"I have other things to do than stand here with the goddamn door open. Get the hell out." The angry voice echoed within the cement walls once more.

With a sudden panic, Ed's weakly opened eye glanced around the room; the fog not having cleared enough for him to clearly grasp his surroundings, "Where's my leg?"

"Don't worry about it," Hohenheim's voice did not display aggravation for any event going on within the echoing room, he simply pulled Edward along as the pair staggered to the barred exit doors, "Let's go Rudolf."

Ed connected his confusion for the retaliatory voice to the name his father had called out. His mind consumed by the throbbing headache, Edward did not think about it long enough to wonder what Hess was doing there.

"What's your name?" Hess pointed a commanding finger at the armed cell guard. The two vocal combatants stood in limbo when the officer used the silence to refuse answering the question. Riled by the uncooperative man, Hess' jaw tightened, "Alright you little fu-"

"That's enough." Hohenheim's displeased voice engulfed the hall, silencing Hess and causing Edward to grip tighter in surprise. As the echo of his voice dispersed within the bitterly cold, damp, and dimly lit holding area in the basement of Munich's police headquarters, Hohenheim turned to leave the area, "Let's go Rudolf. There's nothing worth your time down here."

Again, trying to open his left eye unsuccessfully beyond a thin crack, Ed had shifted the majority of his weight to his father's far stronger hold. Glancing over his shoulder the best he could, Ed tried to concentrate his thoughts long enough to figure out what was going on.

* * *

The pale afternoon light lay scattered throughout the master bedroom; sneaking in from between the spaces of the lace curtains. The smell of the trees and prized flowers filtered in with the afternoon breeze. The silence so deafening, the birdsong emanating from the trees had been muted.

"Alphonse?"

Standing on the shards of sunlight upon her floor, Gracia's soft voice carried in the room. From beyond her bedside, she could see the ends of sandy blonde hair – as though wanting to be found. Her footsteps did not echo in the room as she swept her toes along the hardwood floor. Coming up to the side of her bed, holding vigil next to Alphonse, who had pulled his legs up to his chest sitting upon the floor, Gracia waited.

"I don't feel good," Al's forehead rested atop his knees, fingers intertwined around the front of his legs.

Gracia swept her skirt behind her legs. Silently, she sat down at the edge of the bed.

"My head hurts sometimes… I'm tired," the voice existed with barely enough energy to sustain life.

Brushing her hand over the soft down-filled comforter, Gracia's voice gently extended an offer, "Do you want to have a nap?"

"I'll still have the feeling later."

"What feeling is that?"

The birds' chirp from the window was a welcome intrusion into the dire sensation Alphonse's silence created. The warm orange shards of sunlight decorating the room began to dance; the breeze from the window touching upon Gracia's back and teasing through the tips of Al's hair. Nature tried to entertain the sorrow.

Gracia slid to her knees upon the floor next to Al, un-tucking her legs to the side as she leaned back against the side of her bed.

"I feel so lost around here. I don't know where Sensei is, I don't know where to start looking for my brother, I don't recognize anyone," as Al finally picked his head up, his eyes looked to Gracia; he simply gave up hiding from her. Holding Gracia's comfortable atmosphere in his eyes long enough to feel at ease within the room, Al put his chin down atop his knees and stared across the floor to the white baseboards, "I'm scared."

Pulling herself up next to Al, Mrs. Hughes untied his fingers from around his legs. Her right arm siding around his shoulder, her left hand came delicately to Al's forehead as she moved him; Gracia tucked him into the care of her right arm.

She was warm; to both the touch and feel of her aura. Al liked how comfortable that made him, "I want to stand on my own two feet and move forward. That's what my brother always did. I've been told that and there is no doubt in my mind he did; that's the way he is. I want to know I can do that too."

Silence followed Al every time he spoke – yet this time, the silence carried a clause. He'd left his thoughts at an unconfident open end.

"But?"

Though everything about Gracia's presence made him feel at ease, nothing seemed to ease the thought lingering in a darkened and frightening part of his heart, "I should have been the one who died. That's the way it should work; I was dead to begin with."

Uncertain how to deal with a statement such as that, Gracia remained silent.

"Even before that, I could have prevented this," Al's hand came up to rub his cheek, it burned, "I knew it was wrong from the start. It was my fault."

Gracia rested her chin in his soft hair to remind Al she was still here.

"I even died twice."

Until then, Al had retained the strength to keep his words steady. From deep within his body, he could feel the tremble; it resonated in his voice, "I died once for my mother; and it was my brother who brought me back. I had my soul stapled to a metal suit so I could cling to life somehow. He suffered for that; for my sake. I ended up dying again when I used that stone to right a wrong that should never have happened. He's so stubborn and stupid, why couldn't he just let it be; I don't have any right to be alive. I don't want to be alive through someone's sacrifice, especially my brother's."

Gracia was relieved that he allowed her to hold his trembling hands. She sat there; arms wrapped around him, allowing Al the comfort of her presence to gather and calm himself within. Through the tremble in his hands, Gracia could tell how much time he needed in the warm afternoon before either spoke again.

"Do you want to be dead?"

It was an unexpected question Gracia had posed to Al; a state of mind that had never been brought into the picture. The question wrapped up his mind so tightly, the tremor in his body ceased.

"I like being alive," the longer he thought over the statement, the more foolish it sounded. Of course he liked being alive, "I like Rizembool, lying in the grass, watching the sky and the clouds, reading alchemy books, helping with the baby, helping Winry, Aunty Pinako, Roze, Sensei…" Al's voice captured the room; there was no debate on the issue, "No. I don't want to be dead."

Though Gracia had not expected a statement to the contrary, Al's definitive tone was a relief, "Neither does anyone else. Hasn't your brother set that example for you, that no one wanted to see you disappear?"

The sweet chime of the Hughes' hallway clock trickled into the room for the bottom of the hour. It was true, wasn't it? Al ran that through his head; that was the example and the purpose. And it was those two things he struggled to rely upon. They were true; and he didn't struggle because he did not believe in everyone's motives, he struggled because he fought to associate himself with the burden of guilt and relentless determination he and his brother had carried for so long. No matter who told him the memories, the impact of the experiences they had gone through had been stripped from him. Yet, that was the underlying principle behind why he lived and breathed upon the floor of the Hughes' master bedroom.

Gracia's gaze traveled up the white wall, her mind's eye carrying a far more vivid image than the simplicity of the room, "You were born, you were raised, you were taught, you were befriended, you were cherished and you were loved. You lived." She shifted, brushing Al's hair from his forehead, "That's why Edward didn't let you disappear, you were too important to him, and all those people along the way."

Al took a moment to process her statements. He enjoyed the way the comments made him feel, but a lingering hurt continued to toil, "Doesn't make it right."

"It doesn't have to be," Al's head picked up at Gracia's words, "It simply has to be true."

It was true, he'd just told himself that. The depression of Al's eyes and disposition lifted as he gazed off into the corner. His line of sight slowly canvassed the room, taking nothing more in than the words Gracia had spoken.

"I want to get him back. I don't want my brother to be only a memory," it was a definitive response, no room for argument or debate; that was the way it was each time one brother chose to look after the other, "there's a catch, and I don't think he's dead."

Gracia's thoughts traveled with Al as he picked himself up and moved on, "Why would you want to bring him back?"

Al finally glanced up to Gracia, as though she'd asked a foolish question, "Because he's my brother, he would do the same for me."

As though to reinforce Al's determination, Gracia challenged his motives, "What if he couldn't… or wouldn't do the same for you, would you still search to bring him back?"

"Yes," Al showed no hesitation in his response.

"Why?"

"What would I do without him?" It was a statement that made obvious sense to Alphonse, why did she ask for justification, "He's my brother."

Entertained by Al's bewilderment of the questions, Gracia couldn't help the refreshing smile that crossed her face, "And he's loved; if by no one else, he's loved by you. Loved, cherished and cared about; he's important. This doesn't make your actions right, but it makes your motivation just as 'true' as your brother's. It's why he deserves to be here. Same reasons he had to believe you deserved to be here."

A light breeze played with the curtains again as Al sat silently in wake of her statement, unable to contest it. The pieces of light danced around the room once more.

"I miss my mom," was all Al's hurt little voice offered, almost as if it were a default statement; a comfort he longed for to make all other factors negligible.

"Your mother raised her children with lots of love in their hearts."

"She'd scold us for everything if she were here now," Al wrinkled his nose and downcast his eyes as he thought about her reaction, "it would make her cry if I had to tell her these things."

"Perhaps," Gracia's hand came up and smoothed over the tiffs of hair displaced by the breeze, "But at the end of the day, she'd be proud of the both of you."

Tilting his head, Al turned a puzzled eye up to Gracia, "Why?"

"Because her boys never gave up on each other."

Searching her eyes for doubt, he found none in either Gracia or himself. He did not want to look hard to dispute that statement, he wanted it to be true. Al rolled his head away and slid out from the warm hold she'd cradled him with. Straightening his shirt as he got to his feet, Al did not wander very far. Gracia glanced up to him as he sat down on the side of the bed; hands clasped in his lap, eyes shifting lightly as he looked down in thought. She followed his cue and got to her feet; standing in wait before Al, Gracia smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt.

He had no idea where to start or what was known already; so why not start at the beginning.

"I guess it's been seven years since my mom died. I remember it clearly and, for me, it seems like it's not even been two years. The doctor said she was ill for a while, and the disease ended up killing her. It was so hard to deal with; our dad wasn't around, there was Aunty Pinako but… what do we do without mom. We didn't know. It was Ed who suggested we bring her back, I didn't object; we would have given anything… to see…" Al stopped himself, running the completion of his sentence through his mind first.

That was what had given them the strength to move forward the first time, the willingness to give up anything in order to obtain something. That was part of their story Al still remembered.

And he continued on…

* * *

"Come in," Hohenheim's voice called out to the knock on his office door. With the creak of the hinges, Karl Haushofer stepped into his associate's office. Relieved by the pleasant surprise, Hohenheim placed his glasses down on his un-graded papers, "How unsettling, usually you're the busy one I'm visiting."

Haushofer laughed at the comment, "Aren't I though? But that's simply because my son doesn't help me out like yours. I haven't an extra set of hands like that," being allowed free reign in the room; the man pulled a chair over to the front of his associates' desk, "it's been good of Hess to help out like he is."

"I haven't the time to fight with the police department to find out what they did with Edward's leg, thank you for exempting him from your lecture so he could do this for me," frustration lingered in Hohenheim's tone, "I can just imagine the trouble that's going to come of the cancellation of my 8am class today."

"No trouble," Haushofer relaxed in the seat, crossing a leg over, "if I were your student, I'd be thankful, not complain and enjoy the respite; you couldn't assign them any homework and those who did not complete theirs have an extra day of grace. With that said, you have less to go over. Why are you still here?"

His arms crossed on the edge of the desk, Hohenheim simply shook his head, "I told you at lunch, I still have work to do."

"I have been up since just after three this morning and you no fewer than ten minutes of that, there is nothing that is left here that cannot be done tomorrow," Haushofer reached to the desk, shutting off the lamp light, "go home."

Flicking the switch back on, Hohenheim engaged in a competition of supremacy stares; knowing what the man was getting at, "Beyond his ill tempered mood, Edward is fine. The engineer he's apprenticing is an excellent physician and is at the house. I don't need to be overseer or babysitter. If you want to run with this logic, why are _you _still here?"

"Because my son was able to call me and tell me where he was. I had to call you because yours couldn't," Haushofer's brow tightened as he stood up from the chair to lean over the desk, his hand coming down over the paperwork, "these are the same physics assignments you were working on when I took you out for lunch. If you're going to worry yourself, do it at home and stop pretending you're concerned about these."

The suppression of Hohenheim's concern began to fail. His voice echoed the loudest with unease as he began to cave, "If Albrecht hadn't been able to call you I would never have known Edward was there."

"They should have sent him to the hospital. There was no reason for them to leave him in the cell like that," Haushofer's disgust for the situation became apparent by his tone.

Hohenheim's hand came to his forehead, slouching back in the chair his voice deflated, "Mr. Oberth said the same thing this morning." Having words to say, but suffering from the uncomfortable sensation of not knowing how to compose an explanatory sentence, the man relented to Haushofer's accusations; his hand smoothing over the tied back hair, "It's been hard to keep my concentration today."

A faint smile eased into the Political Professor's expression, "If that's all I can get from you, it'll have to suffice," the man folded his arms firmly across his chest, "I've been chauffer for everyone today since this started, you don't need to walk home. I drove you this morning, I can take you home."

Pushing up from his seat, Hohenheim returned his glasses to his nose and filled the papers into their folders. As he placed them into the desk drawer, Haushofer flicked off the light and spoke up once again.

"The start of a new term is always so hectic, I cannot always keep my mind straight. So before I forget; did you ever find what it was you were looking for?"

Taking his coat from the rack, Hohenheim's gaze grew puzzled, "I went looking for something?"

"After the meeting last week you stayed late with Dietrich, I got the impression you were looking for something? Was I mistaken?"

Hohenheim's movement slowed at the question, pausing while he dressed the overcoat around himself, "I was concerned about construction flaws in the restoration Dietrich had done with the hall last summer. I asked him to walk me through the designs."

Haushofer narrowed his eyes in question, puzzled by the sudden concern, "We went through that last summer and it was fine."

"I wanted to go through it again with him, I was running with a gut feeling," he tightened the jacket belt firmly, "though I was curious to know how he came up with some of the restoration designs and etchings. He's not known as a master of art, just master of words."

Thinking about the engravings within their ancient hall, a side ways grin came across Haushofer's face, "I recall how infuriated he was when you told him that alchemy circle he had etched into the floor was utterly useless. He went to great lengths to find people knowledgeable enough to help him create that. He wanted to impress you the most with it."

"If he wanted to impress me, he should have consulted with me," Hohenheim's un-amused tone gave way to his natural wise aura, "I won't humour the man and tell him he's created a work of art and science when it's simply a flawed inscription."

"What was so wrong with it?"

Hohenheim slid his hands into his pockets as he raised his eyebrows, "Everything." Both men couldn't help but snerk once the words were spoken, "If it were possible for Dietrich to get something like that to work, it would rebound on him because the equation is dangerously incomplete. Why anyone would waste their time trying to develop a wild reaction like that, I have no idea. It may be 'pretty' to look at, but I would never want to be the one who figures out how to use that circle; I place a higher value on my life than that."

Haushofer stood silent in the room, staring with an overwhelmed expression back to Hohenheim, "Going back… you said 'rebound'?"

"The alchemist's body is used to fill in the missing proportions of the alchemical equation. That circle would rip you apart."

"In theory," Haushofer said flatly, narrowing his eyes as though carrying suspicion.

Nodding in agreement, Hohenheim laughed at the look placed upon him, "Yes, in theory. This is why I teach physics and not magic. But if some poor fool gets it to work, don't hesitate to call. You all know where to find me."

* * *

Her elbows on the table and feet tucked behind the legs of the chair, Winry stared out into the magnificent shades of pink and purple caused by the last rays of a setting sun. The picturesque scene developing before her eyes did nothing to fill her hallowed feeling.

"Winry?"

She glanced over to Elysia, who'd pulled herself up into the adjacent chair.

"You're always sad when you come to visit," Elysia pulled one of her stuffed animals onto the table, "would you like the teddy to make you feel better?"

Lifting her elbows, Winry stretched her shoulders out; giving a sigh as she finished, "Elysia, Aunty Winry's not feeling so good right now. Could we play with the teddies later? It's almost time for you to go to bed anyways."

"I don't want to go to bed," Elysia's face wrinkled as she pouted.

"You should go brush your teeth." Winry dawned a stern look, "Go on."

With a huff, Elysia snatched up her stuffed bear and sulked out of the room. Again Winry's elbows came to rest on the table; her forehead eventually falling into the palms of her hands.

"Are you mad at me?"

She startled with a gasp at Al's voice. Turning around in the chair, Winry looked into Al's somber expression as he approached the table.

"No, I'm not." Winry turned forward again in her seat, her voice poorly holding a pleasant tone.

"You look mad at me," Al slipped into the seat Elysia had vacated within the kitchen. He folded his arms on the table and put his head into them. He looked up at her downtrodden expression, "You always look like that when you say 'I'm not mad' or 'I'm not upset' and someone else tells me later you really are."

Displeased by Al's observation, Winry's arms fell crossed upon the table as Al's were, "I'm not mad. I'm just upset," her displeasure cutting out into the abstract sky beyond the window.

Al sunk into his folded arms, his eyes following the same path out the window. He wondered how to word an apology.

"I'm sorry."

"eh?" Al's head picked up, eyes wide with surprise; that was supposed to have been his line, What are you sorry for?"

Putting her chin down into her arms as Al had been doing, Winry glanced over to him; her expression tied in knots with concern, "Gracia told me some things… while you were napping."

Sitting straight in his chair suddenly, it was that miserable look she had which could put both Ed and Al on a flustering, nervous edge. Al waved his hands in front of himself in defence, "I was just really tired and not feeling good. I didn't want anyone to feel bad, don't look like that Winry! I'm sorry, it's not that bad."

"No, I'm sorry that it's hard for you to deal with this," her downcast expression tilted over to him, "It's not something you apologize for, Al. I just wish I could do something to make things easier."

Al slumped back in his seat as she'd spoken; finally sighing, he shrugged and dropped his hands onto the edge of the table, "It was easy not to think about a lot of things in Rizembool. I didn't have to talk about it with anyone, you all knew before I did what had happened. I didn't meet anyone 'new' beyond Roze. I just had lots of time to think too hard."

"Maybe we should have talked with you more about how you were feeling, rather than just telling you stories about how you once felt."

Patting his light case of bed-hair flat, Al folded his arms across his chest; determined to end this cycle of depressing people, "You know, I liked those stories."

"Al," Winry's voice fell flat as she sat up firmly in the chair, "they made you miserable."

"I was jealous," Al's pouting voice came out defensively, "all those things you know and I don't. And then they all ended up being the same stories after a while."

"Would you like some new stories, Alphonse?" Gracia peeked into her kitchen.

Both Winry and Al looked over their shoulders to Gracia; the wide-eyed open reaction Al displayed to the proposal was an obvious answer.

Gracia clasped her hands with a clap as she moved to her kitchen table, "Very good then. Alphonse, would you first read Elysia her bedtime story. Winry and myself are exempt from this since we've done it many times already."

Winry giggled at Al's 'who, me?' response as he returned to his feet, making his way out of the kitchen.

She watched him as he left; the moment she heard his feet move up the stairs, Winry's arms and head came back down on the table, "I feel terrible, this has just been so hard."

Taking her seat at the head of the table, Gracia gave her mother's accusing gaze to Winry, "Why hasn't anyone been talking to him about this?"

"We did at the very beginning, but it stopped after a while. He didn't want to talk about it," she cowered under the disappointed look in Gracia's eyes, "We'd tell Al about what happened and he would avoid topics that involved how he felt about it. It was easier to not upset him and move on with our lives. Bringing Ed back came out of the blue and was all Al's idea. You could see it coming in retrospect, he started to research alchemy on his own before going to Izumi for help."

Lightening the displeasure she looked upon Winry with, Gracia straightened the napkins at the center of her table, "He's a very sweet boy."

Winry ran her fingernail along the top of the polished table, glancing up at the night overtaking what remained of the colourful evening sky, "Izumi made a good point. Al deals with some situations by not dealing with them; he'll try and distance himself first. He runs away and hides until someone comes to get him or until he can figure himself out enough to deal with things. That's what he used to do years ago when Ed would fight with him."

"He's lost five years of maturity, Winry," Gracia stood up from her seat and moved to one of her cupboards.

"I know," Winry watched with a shameful expression as Gracia took three glasses from her cupboard and began filling drinks for her guests. Turning her head forward again, she burrowed her chin back into her arms, "He avoided me for a while. I was so worried; I didn't know if I'd done something wrong or if he hated me or was scared of me…" she gave her head a light shake to dismiss the memory, "Izumi told me that Al was having problems coming to terms with how much older I was."

Placing a glass of lemonade in front of Winry, Gracia sat back down again, "He seems to be alright with you now."

The corners of her mouth curling up, Winry nodded in agreement, "He got over it. But Izumi warned me that Al was going to behave differently without Ed around. Al fed his strength and confidence off of his brother, just as Ed was kept from flying off the handle by Al's composure. Their personalities complemented each other's weaker aspects."

"I can see that. From what I can remember of the boys, and what I see in Al right now; their personality strengths and natural dispositions are quite different."

Winry propped an elbow up onto the table, resting her chin in that hand as she ran her finger around the edge of her glass, "I think Al benefited more because he was the younger brother, he looked up to Ed and Ed was a natural leader; even if he wasn't always a good one, but then that's where Al came in." She glanced over her shoulder to see if Al was close to resurfacing, "He lost that support and it's been hard for him to cope in Central. He's read a lot to keep his mind occupied. Nothing really happened in Rizembool these last few months to help Al deal with a crisis, he gets to find things out the hard way."

"He feels lost and that scares him. But he recognizes that, which is good," Gracia tapped her fingernail on the table; watching Winry knowingly, "it's good he has a big sister to rely on now."

Winry gave a laugh at the remark, "I don't know how to do this job very well, I wanted it really badly and it's been a bit more than I'd expected. I don't know if I'm any good. Just look at what happened today."

Softening her expression, Gracia smiled in thought, "If you weren't doing a good job, then he wouldn't rely on you like he is."

"It doesn't matter anyways, I guess."

The empty voice Winry spoke with struck an uneasy cord within Gracia.

"I'm just the replacement until he gets Ed back."

"… Winry?" Gracia straightened in her seat, suddenly concerned by the statement.

Both turned their attention to the kitchen entrance as Al's feet were finally heard coming down the stairs.

* * *

For the length of time he was aware of his father standing silent in the doorway, Edward never realized when the man finally entered the room. Having gotten use to the semi-unwanted feeling of his father's distant gaze watching over him, somewhere between staring at the cracks in the ceiling and the half sleep he'd been drifting into, Ed had faded out long enough for his father to seat himself at the edge of his bed uncontested. The concerned vigil had gone on since the day Hohenheim had found his son in the London hospital. Because of that, Ed's awareness of his father's hand on his forehead had become a familiar sensation; it no longer woke him or startled him. Even though he knew the circumstances behind the man's motivation, Edward would continue to find reasons to object. Having drifted back to a semi-conscious state from the pounding between his temples, Hohenheim was able to feel Ed's facial disapproval and lift his hand before Ed had any chance of swatting it away. Amused that he had gotten away with doing that, a grin and a subtle laugh crossed Hohenheim's face.

"Don't laugh at me," Ed scowled; only his right eye returned to glowering at the ceiling, his left eye now covered in the patch Oberth had dressed him with, "What do you want?"

Hohenheim shook his head; sounding amused in relief of the coherent, yet displeased, voice Edward had, "are you feeling any better?"

"I feel like I got hit with a pipe…"

Hohenheim raised his eyebrows; "You did get hit by a pipe… well, the police baton, which can be likened to a pipe."

"Right…" Ed sank into the bed sheets, somewhat ashamed of the incident he couldn't recall, "go away."

In the quiet, late day, sun lit room, Hohenheim continued to sit silent on the edge of the bed; his mind adrift in the thoughts he'd carried all day long. An uneasy silence between the two began to creep into existence. Upon feeling Edward's eyes cast questionably at him, Hohenheim motioned to the bandaged side of Ed's face, "Hermann stitched it up alright?"

Ed shivered at the thought, spewing out a string of profanities at the experience. He wrinkled his nose and called upon his most displeasing tone, "and the next person to poke me with a needle isn't going to have any fingers left to poke me with again."

"Okay," Hohenheim nodded having heard that sentiment before. A bemused smirk crossed his face while he entertained a thought, "but now you can pass as a pirate."

"Oh for the love of…" Ed rolled over onto his stomach and pulled the quilt over his head, "just don't. Go back to your hole and grade papers, I don't need this from you."

Hohenheim sighed and looked up at the ceiling; his voice sounding tired, "Rudolf has been heckling the station and officers to find out what's been done with your leg."

"Good for him," from beneath the covers, Ed's miserable voice continued to sound out, "Explain to me again why they took it."

Hohenheim rolled his eyes at the thought and simply shook his head at the police's rationale that _after _they had knocked his son out, they could prevent him from running away by taking his leg, "I have no explanation for that."

"Yeah, you're such a big help. You can get out n-"

"Edward," Hohenheim's voice came out flat, the feign of amusement missing from his tone, "what do you think you're doing?"

Somewhat naive, Ed peeked his head out from the covers, "doing? I'm trying to sleep, I have had a headache all day and you're interrupting me," his eyes narrowed as he voiced his dislike for the man's continued intrusion into his room, "what do you think you're doing? I told you to g-"

"What the hell were you thinking?"

The angered undertone of his father's normally subdued voice was startling, and apparent in his precise enunciation. Slowly turning and sitting up, Ed brushed his blonde hair off his shoulders; unresponsive to his father's question. They sat in the uneasy moment created by the stern words, Hohenheim facing off into a corner of the room as he sat; elbows on knees, chin in hands. Ed leaned away as he turned to sit squarely on the bed.

"What got into your head?"

Frowning at his second accusation, Ed replied, "You're the one who told me to keep on good terms with these people."

"I _never _told you to get involved," Hohenheim's fierce displeasure in the situation was made painfully clear by his sharp and unchallengeable voice. The voice his father possessed had yet to hit enough wrong cords to draw a response from Edward; though frustration began to show on the younger man's face.

"Why did you go to that?"

"I wasn't given too much of a choice. Haushofer's pupil, Hess – I bumped into him when I was running those errands, he told me to attend," Ed's voice cautious yet firm within the conversation.

"Since when did you abide by a stranger's requests so willingly?"

Annoyed by the questioning of his judgment, Ed's gaze stiffened as he spoke each word carefully, his cocky tone ever-present, "Since I didn't think I'd been given much of a choice in the matter. You should know better than I; he's _your _associate, after all."

Standing up from the bedside slowly, as if his body ached of age; Hohenheim straightened his shirt and turned the serious and over powering gaze he commanded onto Edward. His voice remained constant and harmonic with the underlay of disapproval, "Don't get involved next time. Decline them; find some way out of it. Just stay away."

Taking a moment to digest and fight off the undesirable intimidation, Ed scowled back at the man, "Since when did you start thinking you can control my life?"

"This discussion is over," Hohenheim's voice cut in, not prepared to argue the issue.

Edward straightened sharply in his spot; jaw tightening and brow knit as he challenged back, "The hell it is, you-"

"_Enough,_ Edward."

It was that crushing voice.

That tone which somehow retained the power to silence Edward. A voice saturated with forceful command and a frightening ability to conquer. It wasn't loud or forced, and it never yelled; it simply boomed with authority strong enough to cause cement walls to tremble. He had watched his father draw this tone out occasionally in London, with a slightly greater frequency in Munich, and despised it with a passion when it was turned upon him. Yet, Edward would say nothing. The man would get his way, and no one had enough strength to challenge him; the unquestionable firm expression and devastating look of his eyes made efforts futile. It was a persona that made Ed jealous in retrospect of any given situation; he wished to master a prowess like that.

An eventual sigh was released into the ensuing silence as Hohenheim's laid-back demeanour returned at the fall of his shoulders, "I just ask… that you don't get involved with them again. It's a simple request."

Edward did not reply to yet another of his father's statements; by this time, an answer was no longer required.

"Do you want dinner?" the tired voice Hohenheim had taken home with him from the university returned to his voice.

Still somewhat locked in the submissive state his father had ground him into, the shrug of Ed's shoulders was half-hearted and his voice flat, "Sure."

"I'll bring it up to you," Hohenheim slid his hands into his trousers' pockets, "try and get some more sleep when you're done, the headache will go away faster."

* * *

"Let's see, after that…" Gracia tapped her chin, "Maes had arranged for your boys' escort and body guard to be Lt. Colonel Armstrong, back when he was still a Major."

Winry's chin rested in her folded arms upon the table, "So that's where he came from."

"He arranged for all your escorts, including Lt. Ross and Sgt. Broche," Gracia nodded, trying to recall the memories, "after Maes had been out East for a while, he came home and you boys followed not long afterwards. I know you spent some time in the fall with Sheska, as she re-wrote some books you needed to look through. You spent a lot of time over the winter in the library, Ms. Ross was constantly on Maes' case about that too, she was petrified Scar was going to show up."

"Did he?" Al continued to sit at the table in similar fashion to Winry, head in his arms as he eagerly listened to her fill in a void for him.

Gracia nodded slowly, "Maes got called out one night on an emergency. Turns out you boys got yourselves in a situation and the Fuhrer commanded the troops entering the compound to get you out. Both you and Ed were hurt in that."

"I think Ed called me right after, because his AutoMail stopped working," Winry added quietly, trying to keep her aura of innocence in the whole situation.

"Oh yes, that's why you boys couldn't attend Elysia's birthday party. You were in the hospital," Gracia stirred the spoon in her teacup, "but Winry came, and I sent her back with a cake for you two, since it was Ed's birthday too."

Al turned his head in his arms, "I thought I couldn't eat?"

Winry laughed nervously, "Ed ate most of it, the pig. Mrs. Hughes gave me the recipe and I made it for you on your last birthday, remember? So you did get to eat it, just a bit later, slightly different…" her voice trailed off, deciding that it be best to ask Gracia to make a cake for him instead.

Gracia giggled at Winry's attempt; lacing her fingers, she returned to the thoughts, "Once you were doing better, right around the end of winter and the beginning of spring, you three were off to… Dublith I believe it was," she looked to Winry who nodded to confirm the story, "We saw you off at the station, and that was the last time I'd seen either of you."

Al crossed his eyes as he tried to place everything into a time frame, "How long ago was that?"

"A little over a year, it was just before Maes passed away," Gracia nodded as she sorted out the events around that part of her life.

Winry and Al exchanged an uncomfortable look once they realized what had been brought up. Bouncing up in her seat, Winry piped up, "Can we go back to the story about Ed's birthday party Al was asking about earlier, when he first came to Central and Elysia was born? In his 'lookit me! I'm so cool, I'm a State Alchemist!' letter Ed _briefly_ mentioned what happened."

Al's eyes glanced out the kitchen and down the hall; he shut the noises in the room out of his mind for a moment, trying to spot the suit jacket hanging up on the coat rack before Mrs. Hughes' voice interrupted.

"Oh goodness," entertained by the memory, Gracia laughed, "those two came over with little Nina. Edward was all out of sorts having people fuss over him like that; I think he wanted to crawl away when we sung him Happy Birthday. But he loved the food. I have no idea how that tiny boy stored everything he ate."

"Mrs. Hughes," Al interrupted her, "that little girl in the photo, her name was Nina?"

Winry's expression fell sideways in confusion, "What photo?"

"Mrs. Hughes gave me a photo from Ed's birthday party when I was here last. It had everyone in it." Getting up from his chair at the table, Al slipped out of the kitchen and made his way down the hall. He'd transferred the picture into the suit jacket he was wearing at the funeral, hoping that he would have been able to stop off at Mrs. Hughes', also concerned that someone might find it in his other coat. Taking the envelope from the inside pocket, Al held it in his hands for a moment; turning it over a few times as he thought over his questions, before moving back into the kitchen. Returning to the chair, he remained distracted in thought.

Lifting up from her seat at the table, Winry leaned across, "Can I see it?"

"Sure," Al lay the envelope flat on the table's polished surface slid it across to her.

Catching an unsettling feeling from young Al, Gracia's eyes grew concerned over seriousness of his expression, "Alphonse, is something wrong?"

He was silent a moment as Winry flipped the envelope open and pulled out the picture.

"Maybe."

Winry burst into giggles upon seeing the picture, "Aww… it's so nostalgic to see everyone like that. Ed looks so young! Al you're just monstrously huge compared to everyone else…" her eyes glanced up to Al, entertained by the photograph. The mood was instantly displaced; Winry found herself caught off guard by stern grey eyes Al watched her with.

"…What?" her voice came out slowly.

"Look at the photo again."

Leaning back in her chair, Winry ran her eyes over the photo again, "What am I looking for?"

Al didn't answer; he just watched her eyes and waited for a reaction. The moment her eyes stopped drifting around the image, he knew she'd seen it.

Winry's posture began to fall apart as her eyes grew wide in confusion. Slowly sitting forward, her hand coming to her mouth as she tried to wrap her mind around what she saw, "how long ago was this?" her voice came out sharp and quick; and though she was aware of the answer, she still wanted someone's confirmation.

"Just over five years," an abnormally serious tone echoed in Al's voice.

Winry sat the photo down on the table, her fingernail pointing to the little girl sitting adjacent to Ed, "Nina… you said?"

Al turned his attention to Mrs. Hughes, "Nina right?"

Gracia nodded, uncertain as to where the conversation was going.

"Well…" Winry sat back, her eyes trained on the photo, "how old is she there? She looks four or five."

"Four, Nina's fifth birthday was coming up in the summer. She asked if I could make the cake for her party too," Gracia said quietly as she recalled the memory.

"So if this picture was taken in January, and it's the summer now, she'd have to be about 10 today," Al's gaze crossed back to Winry.

Leaning over the photo once again, Winry's eyes dug into it, "Mr. Mitchell's daughter is seven going on eight… she certainly doesn't look old enough to be ten."

"But look at it Winry," Al insisted, sitting higher in his seat.

Concentrating on the image, her hand came over her mouth again; elbows resting on the table, "I know. I can see it… that's just… not adding up."

Gracia glanced between the two, uncomfortable with the uneasy aura they were giving off, "What are you two going on about?"

Al pointed to the photograph, "The little girl the Mitchell family adopted in the last week looks just like that little girl in the photo."

Pausing a moment to examine the correlation the two had made, Gracia suddenly shook her head, realizing the piece of information they missed, "No no you two, you're mistaken," she waved her hand to ease the situation, her voice somewhat withdrawn by the recollection, "Nina died a couple months after this was taken."

"What!" Al's full attention shot to Gracia who seemed taken aback by the sudden response. Catching her discomfort, Al withdrew his aggressive posture and returned to staring at the photograph before them, "Your other photos from the party, they have Nina in them too don't they?"

"Yes," Gracia stood up, she did no need to wait for Al to request it, "let me get them."

Both sets of remaining eyes trained diligently on the photo as Gracia stepped out of the room. Within her fingernails, Winry picked up the photo again, "Maybe it's a coincidence…?"

"Winry you know what she looks like. That picture is clear, you can't mistake it," Al's voice insisted desperately.

"I know…" she put the photo back down on the table, at the mid point between herself and Al. Her startled expression staring back into the seriousness of Al's eyes, "But Mrs. Hughes said she died."

His frown deepening, Al challenged her statements, "Then she either didn't really die, or someone brought her back."

"Al, don't go there. There was only one stone and you used it," Winry snapped sharply, not liking where he was taking this.

"My brother didn't use it! Everyone said so," Al swept his hand across the table, picking the photo up by the boarder, "There was only one Nina, but now we've seen another. I've looked at Mrs. Hughes' other photos, I know who I saw. You're going to see it too in a second."

Winry sat back, silent in her chair, suddenly anxious, nervous, and quite frightened to see the impending photo album.

"There's someone out there responsible for this. Maybe this person has done something similar to what my brother did with me. If they found another method and brought her back without the stone, then maybe they can tell me something to help get him back."

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

**

* * *

**

**Author's Notes  
**  
Al is someone everyone should be allowed to hug. And Gracia is everyone's mom – she's so good at it.

I'm going to run with the assumption that Wrath spilled no information what so every during the time Winry equipped him.

Speaking of Winry: Bad little Nina-girl, planting the seed of doubt in Winry's mind that she's a substitute. The one thing I noticed about Winry in the series was that she oozed confidence when it came to mechanics or anything technical, but she was quick to doubt or tear up when it came to personal issues with Ed and Al.

I want Hohenheim to have a powerful dimension to him. Something that scares everyone but he doesn't use or abuse because he values his compassionate side. The refined dimension that allowed him to survive, and want to have survived, for 500 or so years (which involves a killer instinct, or he would not still be around). The fact he made it clear he'll allow himself to die off this time does not indicate (in my mind) that he's given up – but simply that he's realized his time has come. He is 'The Wise' (and he's trapped on the other side of the gate, whoops). Ed is smart enough to have figured out that his dad, if he wants to be, is a very intimidating man. I'd go so far as to say that by this point Ed is able to respect that about him; God forbid Ed ever admit to this.

**Chapter 59 Feedback**

Queen of Vegetasei – (RE: Ch 58) LOL aw XD I'm glad you care, that makes me happy. I'm glad you're enjoying how things are going :) . Everything (both London and Munich) are to be gloomy and miserable, somewhat reflecting how Ed is down there. As for the Homunculus movie, I believe the info I found said that only a 'partial' existing copy remains. Gonna have to go to Germany to see it tho, lol. And Ed... I love Ed, I love writing Ed too. He (and all the miserable things that happen to him) makes me happy.

meijiOrO – The story's not done with Hitler yet, what fun would that be if I let the scariest part of German history fade away?

SxStrngSamurai13 – I wasn't going to put a half hearted effort into my story; not to say that other fic writers do, I'm just saying that it was either going to be an all out effort or none at all.

Kajeth – Aw I'm sorry there's not more (just yet) but if it makes you feel any better, I currently have chapter outlines all the way up to Ch 63.

Merf – I know what's been done with Izumi!

FolkenStratigos - I was aware of Hohenheim's origins, though I don't think I'm going to get into that very much.


	10. The Hermaphrodite Child of the God of Bo...

**He Who Searches For Himself**

**Please Note; this story picks up where the FullMetal Alchemist anime left off and continues on from a previous chapter. Please don't spoil yourself if you've not finished the FMA TV series. This chapter is not independent of previous ones.**

* * *

_Hermes called me the Sun and the Moon. Riplaeus called me the green lion. Our author called me hermaphrodite, but I pay no attention to that. It makes no difference. Nor does it matter what the sophists call me, for they learn nothing for all their trouble except: (1) I am One Substance, not two; (2) In me is Bernard's little fountain; (3) I am dry water, subtle pure; (4) I am raised up by the power of Mars, as commanded by Philaleth, the famous Adept who coagulates my esoteric nature with Mercury._

**Chapter 61 - The Hermaphrodite Child of the God of Boundaries**

"Ah!" Ed's hand reached up to snatch back the note pad his father had taken from him, "what do you think you are doing?"

Sitting down at the end of the couch, Hohenheim's eyes scanned Edward's scrawling, "You haven't done this work at home lately."

"Not like I'm going anywhere, give that back," from his usual perch upon the floor, one and a half legs outstretched beneath the coffee table, and a pile of papers tossed about on the table; Ed tried to reclaim the note pad from his father.

"c(I-k)dm equals (M-m)dv plus (R plus g(M-m))dt; where M is rocket initial mass; m is the mass that has been ejected up to time t; v is the velocity of the rocket up to time t; c is the velocity of ejection of the mass expelled; R is the force, in absolute units, due to air resistance; g is the acceleration of gravity; dm is the mass expelled at time dt; k is the constant fraction of the mass dm that consists of casing K, expelled with zero velocity relative to the remainder of the rocket; and finally dv is the increment of velocity given the remaining mass of the rocket," Hohenheim's glasses slid down his nose as he took a deep breath, "Hermann is going to disown you for reading Goddard's report."  
Ed snatched the pad of paper away from his father, "I'm comparing notes."

The questioning look on Hohenheim's face grew as he eyed Edward, "That is cause for trouble; it is not notes. And that formula can be simplified, a great deal."

"I know that," Ed's flat voice drawled out unimpressed, "I have it broken down because I'm looking for something."

Hohenheim shook his head at that with a grin; he loosened the tie around his neck, enjoying the relaxing feeling of the final class for the week being finished and knowing his weekend was more or less free. He relaxed back in the couch, closing his eyes for a moment.

"You know," Ed tapped his pencil on the pad of paper, "if I had known even half of this information six or seven years ago, I could have done so much more with my alchemy. Concepts of acceleration, gravity, air displacement… everything that keeps an airplane in the air and will make this rocket go up."

Not opening his eyes, Hohenheim simply put the mental image of his living room into his mind; "A lot of that information is dangerous because you're playing with gaseous elements. Alchemists don't normally tinker with intangible elements like molecules in the air, we prefer to transmute a substance into something we can hold and display. Solids and liquids."

"When I first met with Lyra, she manipulated the air; that stupid Colonel played with the oxygen concentration in the air too," Edward wrinkled his nose a bit at a few memories.

"And they both had destructive effects and nothing tangible to show for it, correct?"

"I suppose," Ed turned back to his table of work.

"Which Colonel played with oxygen?"

In a mirror image of dumbfounded facial reactions, both Ed and Hohenheim startled in their places and shot their attention out of the room at the intrusive little voice in the hall.

"How do you play with oxygen anyways?" Brigitte waved her left arm wildly in the air, "I don't see anything happening."

Both father and son held a look of dismay on their faces, it was Edward who spoke up first; his eye twitching, "Do you just walk into everyone's house without knocking? How did you get in?"

Brigitte pointed to the door down the hall, "It was unlocked."

Hohenheim brought his hand slowly to his chin; an innocent look hid a guilty conscience, "Did I leave the door unlocked?" He quickly found a fluttering of papers in his face as Edward tossed his pad of notes at the man.

"You yelled at me for that last week!!"

Marching her way around the men, Brigitte sat herself down on the floor across the table from Ed, "Can I see it?"

Ed pointed to the patch still over his left eye, "This?" Upon receiving the affirmative response, Ed pulled the patch off his eye to reveal the purple & blue, swollen, and stitched up eyebrow and upper cheek.

"Eww," Brigitte's eyes widened, "does it hurt?"

Ed snorted at that, "Yes."

"Can you see?" she leaned across the table, peering up into his face.

"Yes, I can see," Ed returned the patch to it's place, "I have to keep the patch on or, according to Hermann, I'll strain the eye and with all that swelling it will give me a never ending headache. The patch stays on until the swelling and bruising is not so bad."

Placing her hands neatly folded on the table, and coming to sit on her knees, Brigitte straightened her back to a proper posture, "And you're going to teach me alchemy in the meantime, right?"

"What?" Edward's face fell as his father started to laugh. Narrowing his expression, Ed leaned across the table, "how long were you standing in the hall?"

"A long time!" Brigitte bounced in her place, "so now it's time for you to convince me this house isn't full of raving lunatics."

Hohenheim couldn't help his laughter at the situation and stood up, "Speaking of alchemy, Edward, I need you to come talk to me once you're done with this tutorial. There's something I need to discuss with you."

"Huh? Discuss something?" Ed's expression fell flat, "I ain't doin' a tutorial!!"

Waving a hand to dismiss potential concern, Hohenheim's voice spoke up at the initial ring of the telephone, "We can discuss it later. It can wait," he turned out of the room to answer the phone.

"What is this?" Brigitte exclaimed through a squeal in her voice, "you're building a rocket ship!?" She held one of Edward's design schemes up in the air.

Ed threw his arms into the air, "What are you doing!? Don't touch this stuff; you're more nosey than that stupid old man!"

Brigitte let the paper layout float down from her hands back onto the table, "When you go to the moon, can I come too?"

"I have no intention of going to the moon," Ed began to file his paperwork away, "I have a far better place in the sky to be."

"The only other place in the sky is heaven," giving him a skeptical look, Brigitte narrowed her eyes, "You want to fly to heaven?"

"Not quite like that either," Ed snapped an elastic around his folder of papers.

Tilting her head in thought, Brigitte tapped her fingernails on the table, "Okay, if you say so. But in the meantime you can tell me all sorts of things about alchemy."

Edward's left hand came over his forehead as he slumped in his place, "Why do you care? It's just convoluted theory, you wouldn't underst--"

"Edward!" Hohenheim's voice came out in a rush; "I'll be back," the door slammed shut the moment his words were out.

Ed sat up higher, trying to peer down the hall from beyond the back of the couch, "What was that?"

Standing up on her feet, Brigitte gazed down the hall to the main door, "Your father just left."

* * *

Side by side on the Hughes' family sofa, sitting with their heads shamefully bowed as if they were to be scolded like puppies, Winry and Al sat silent. Gracia's folded arms and unimpressed expression postured in front of them. Elysia at her Mother's side, an empty roll of paper towel in hand. 

For the second day in a row, the pair had returned to the Hughes' household, and things had not gone according to schedule. Al had expressed concerns to Gracia about certain things that Winry would disapprove of, and Gracia had found out that there were certain things Winry had neglected to inform Alphonse about that she was afraid would make matters worse. Gracia had individually told them that open communication would improve both their situations, yet as the day wore on, both played an oblivious game with the other. Having had enough of watching this progress, Gracia devised a solution.

Giving a sigh, the mother glanced to her daughter, "Winry first."

Marching up to Winry, Elysia handed her the empty roll.

With a demoralizing sigh, Winry took the roll from Elysia, "Okay, so when I got to Central I met Sheska at the library. Lieutenant Havoc was there and he took us shopping. When we were done he took us to visit with some of the military personnel and I ran away when Sheska scared me and I thought I would be pressured into talking about you and Ed. I found out when I went to the police station to ask about you that someone had issued an arrest warrant for me, I have no idea what that's about but I can take an educated guess about who issued it. The next day, I was searching the hospital trying to find someone who would 'share' some information with me, when I accidentally spotted some more military officers I recognized, so I ran away again and bumped into you."

"Why didn't you--"

"Alphonse!" Elysia's commanding little voice interrupted him, "you do not have the roll. Do not speak unless you have the roll."

Winry's cheek twitched as did Al's eye, both of them staring back at Elysia's fierce childish expression; their shoulders fell at a loss, knowing Gracia stood right behind her daughter. They exchanged glances before straightening up in their seats.

Gracia, firm in her position, looked sternly upon Winry, "Is that all?"

"Um…" Winry looked up in thought, "I'm going to stay with Ms. Hughes from now on, I don't like the Mitchell house. Maybe you should ask to leave too," scratching her cheek in thought, she glanced up to Gracia, "I think that's it."

"Please pass the roll to Alphonse."

Taking the roll into his hand, Al scowled at Winry, "Why didn't you tell--"

"Alphonse!" Elysia's voice cut in again, "this is sharing time, not be mean to Winry time."

Once again, the dumbfounded looks found their way across the pair's faces. After a moment of sitting frozen in place, trying to understand how they ended up in this mess, both finally sat back into the couch with matching sighs.

Al put the roll in both his hands across his lap, "Again, I'm sorry I told Mrs. Hughes the 'secret', but I thought it was important to talk with her about it. Tomorrow she's going to take me to Central's military headquarters and I'm going to ask for some help finding Sensei," he took a deep breath.

"Al, I don't know if--"

"Winry!" Elysia's hands placed firm on her hips, "you do not have the roll. You cannot speak…"

"… unless I have the roll, sorry," her hand reached out and snatched an end of the roll from Al, his hand still gripping and end tightly, "why are we being treated like 5 year olds?"

"Because you're acting like 5 year olds. Five year olds know that lying is wrong and honesty is the best policy, taking things that don't belong to them is wrong and that it's polite to wait your turn. Do you want to stand in the corner for taking the roll that wasn't given to you and speaking out of turn?" Gracia's sweet yet firm tone never wavered as she lectured.

With the uncontrollable twitch of her eye, Winry's hand quickly let go of the roll she put her hands firmly into her lap. An unexplainable blush of embarrassment came across her face from the childish scolding.

"Alphonse, do you have any more?"

Al nodded affirmatively, "Mrs. Hughes makes me think that the military people might do a better job than the police are doing finding Sensei, especially if I ask. I want to find Sensei and get my brother back. I'm going to go see the military people and ask them for help with that. If they ask what's gone on with me and my brother, I'm going to tell them. And I'll tell them you're not a criminal."

"Al…"

"WINRY!" Both Gracia and Elysia's voices chimed together. Winry shrieked at the call of her name again and sunk into the couch cushions, her hands covering her face as she whined to herself.

Al sweatdropped with coinciding embarrassment to Winry's reaction, "You can come if you want," he extended the roll to her.

A hand swiftly snatching the tube away, Winry's face soured as she looked at him, "Of course I'm going," the hallow pop of the roll sparked into the room as she swatted Al upside the head, "you're not going to do all these things on your own."

Al jumped to his knees in the seat and reached up, taking the roll away from her, "And when we're there you're not going to tell me what to do, or what to say, or how to--"

Snatching an end back from him, the two of them pulled the roll in limbo between themselves. Winry narrowed his eyes, tightening her grip, "I don't tell you what to do!"

"Yes you do! You even try to tell me how to dress!"

"I do not do that!"

"You do! You picked out this shirt!"

"I 'suggested' it because it looked good!"

"See, you do so!"

Elysia's hand came to tug on her mother's skirt, "Mummy, they're fighting and they both have the roll."

Gracia tilted her head, a half smile coming across her face, "I'm impressed it lasted this long," her voice rose above once again, "If you're going to fight, I have a sand box outside!"

Winry and Al stopped; fists, feet, legs and arms entangled with each other, the roll still locked in their hands.

"You abused the roll," Gracia announced, the feign of displeasure crossing her face again as she stepped up and snatched it away, "no one can speak unless I say so. You'll stand in the corner if you don't do as you're told."

The two fell back into their seats, once again morally trodden upon; Gracia treated them no better than her daughter would have been. Straightening themselves, they eyed her suspiciously.

"Now then, today's lesson was 'honesty'. You shouldn't be afraid to talk honestly with your friends because they are supposed to understand and support you. That's what good friends do," Gracia watched the pairs of eyes drift away as she addressed them like kindergarteners, "and since you two are so close, I don't see why this should be a problem again. Okay you two?"

"Yes ma'am," they spoke together; hands in their laps, downcast in their spots.

"Very good."

Elysia's voice chimed in, "Hug and say sorry!"

The two slouched in their seats at the depressing situation they drifted deeper into.

"Yes, that's a good idea. Hug and say sorry," Gracia's sweet smile emerged on her face as she looked down to the pair on her sofa.

Al's eyes looked up at her with a pathetic gaze, "Ms. Hughes, could we just--"

There was something frighteningly serious in the tone of her voice that did not allow either one of them to argue with Ms. Hughes, "I have lots of corners for you two to stand in if you don't do as you're told."

* * *

"It is of no consequence. Ottoberg did not get to speak, I'm quite satisfied to sit in this cell as reward for it," Adolf crossed his arms as he sat upon the wooden bench of his holding cell. 

"Nothing I could offer them was sufficient for bail. I regret that terribly. We are, however, working on the judge who'll hand out your sentence," Hess leaned up against the cold metal bars separating him from the man he followed with blind loyalty, "I think we've pulled the assault charge down to one month."

"You continue to amaze me," A smirk came across Adolf's face at the thought. Though finally sighing, almost in content, Adolf changed the direction of the conversation, "and your friend, who has yet to entertain me with his voice," his hand motioned to Hohenheim, obscured in the dim light of the holding area; leaning up against the cold brick wall behind Hess, "he got his son's leg back I see."

Turning over his shoulder to Hohenheim, Hess gave an affirmative nod, "He even paid the fee. I would have cut off their hands if they'd demanded money from me after what they'd done, seems Professor Hohenheim is lenient today."

Hohenheim did not react to Hess' statements, choosing to remain as frozen over as the walls were within the dungeon of a jail room.

A smug tone carried in his voice as Adolf spoke again, "Does your friend realize how much of an inconvenience upon society his son could be?"

It was Hess, not Hohenheim, who reacted to the statement, "I was impressed. He's quite agile and holds his own very well. I thought he defended himself better than many of our men considering he did not provoke what he found himself involved with. It was the police, not the absence of his leg, that caused him problems in the hall."

Giving a slight shrug of his shoulders, Adolf redirected his lines of speech away from Hess; "I would be honoured if you and your son would entertain me with your presence more often, Professor Hohenheim. I certainly enjoy watching a well-respected man like yourself look at me with such intense eyes."

"Once again, Sir…" it was the first thing Hohenheim had spoken since arriving with Hess, "…I respectfully decline your offer at this point in time."

Scoffing at the comment, Adolf recollected the frigid aura around himself, "That is a shame."

"I still have a few engagements left in my day, so I need to get going. I'll bring your mail next time I come," Hess gave a nod to his Fuhrer who simply looked on in return. Glancing over his shoulder to Hohenheim, Hess indicated his departure and signaled for the man to follow as he walked down the hall.

Slow to respond, as if to spite the last 72 hours he'd been run in circles, Hohenheim stepped away from the wall; picking up the burlap bag he had put Edward's leg in from the ground. The remaining silence between Hohenheim and the man beyond the barricade was broken at the closing of the door from Hess' exodus.

"Professor Hohenheim."

Stopping at the call of his name, Hohenheim turned his attention over to the darkened jail cell. The look hardening in his eyes at the sight of malicious intent, poorly masked by the intertwined hands in front of Adolf's face.

"I am truly disappointed by you."

Hohenheim's expression remained unchanging.

"Your friends, your peers; they all praise you, speak highly of you and never once have I heard them speak down upon you. I hope it's not that frightening gaze you bestow upon me that has them all where you'd like them," slowly rising from his seat, Adolf straightened his baggy cotton pants, "I do not understand how you command their respect. I'm certain you're far dirtier than how you appear in other people's eyes. If you were not, then you would be a part of my regime by now."

Silent for a moment, Hohenheim finally bowed his head at the statement, "It is a shame you see me that way."

"I wish you would allow me the chance to get close enough to understand what it is that your colleagues see," Adolf's cold gaze moved into harmony with the chilled holding cell, "I've never been able to understand it."

Hohenheim brushed the ends of his ponytail from his shoulder, finally straightening the glasses upon his nose; his tone and aura remained unreadable, "I believe my position now, as a Thule Society member, supports your cause enough that I do not need to pay dues to your party."

Standing at the center of his cage, Adolf stared, devoid of emotion, through the metal barriers to the challenging counterpart, "One should keep their friends close, and enemies closer."

"Do you view me as an enemy?"

"You give me no reason to see you as a comrade."

"So be it." It came as somewhat of a relief to Hohenheim, to be able to tell the man who had corrupted the minds of so many of the people he had developed relationships with in Munich that he was not interested in being part of this scheme.

Turning and finally walking away from the scene, Hohenheim's shoes echoed louder than the sound of the slippers Adolf wore as he came to the bars of his cell.

"Your son's eyes are very strong; I met them at that meeting. He carries them in a similar fashion as you; you've been told this I assume?" The moment Adolf realized his words had altered the flow of Hohenheim's steps, he proceeded further – his voice echoing off the cement walls, "I am impressed that he has gone to such lengths to better himself, he has determination far beyond any man faced with a similar situation," the praise vanished without transition, "But without those attachments he's a disfigurement, with them he's an eyesore of humanity; that boy tries to exist as a flake of dead skin which should be removed from the pure body of Germany."

Hohenheim stopped.

"As does every crippled man, diseased individual and corrupt Jew," Adolf flicked his finger at every niche of mankind he mentioned, "Germany, the world as a whole, is ugly with these existences."

Setting the bag he carried down, Hohenheim slid his hands into his trench coat pockets. A calm exterior shrouded him as he walked back to Adolf's cell; a vacant expression carried on his face.

Leaning up against the bars of his jail cell, Adolf watched the reaction to his words with a half grin, "I did say 'should be', not 'will be' or 'shall be'."

"Is there a purpose to this tirade?" Hohenheim stood to face him from beyond the jail bars, "or do you enjoy hearing the sound of your own voice?"

"You hide your displeasure of me so well," Adolf ran a hand through his hair before propping himself up against the cold metal bars of his cage, "Professor, if there is nothing I can do to sway you, to convince you, to show you, that with our interests we can coincide in harmonic matrimony; may I have your son instead?"

"You may not," there was no room for debate in Hohenheim's tone.

"Will you provide me with a reason?" Adolf leaned back from his metal barrier, "I think he'd make a fine substitution for the role I see fit for you in this picture I have painted for my Germany."

"I will not play this game with you," shaking his head with obvious disapproval of the conversation, Hohenheim would have turned away if the man's voice had not picked up again.

"I poised a question to you, Professor, and you did not answer it," Adolf could read it, that look Hohenheim had on his face; he knew the answer had been given. But it was the elder man's use of situational presence Adolf disapproved of; he preferred the manipulative verbal argument to the contest of wills. Hohenheim's refusal to join the war of words aggravated him.

"Would you rather I leave him ruined on the ground instead?"

In an unprepared moment, Hohenheim's arm ripped through the bars of the enclosing cell; his hand seizing the front of Adolf's white shirt as he ripped the man forward from where he stood and into the unforgiving metal barrier.

"Do _not _touch him."

Adolf's hand gripped onto Hohenheim's merciless wrist that pinned him against the bars, "It's reassuring to know that I still frighten you this much, Professor."

Hohenheim's eyebrow twitched in response to the comment. Sharply taking the firm hand away from his challenger, he stepped back from the barred enclosure to prevent another knee-jerk reaction.

"I am doing you a courtesy. I did not have to give you this warning; I could have let you figure it out on your own," Adolf's tone was detestable, yet disturbing enough that Hohenheim could not allow himself to walk away, "I either want you, or I will have your son; if I do not get one or the other I will seize everything from you until the last thing left for you see_ is me_."

Unwilling to provide a dignifying response, Hohenheim simply turned away and moved silently down the hall; picking up the bag with Edward's leg in it. The thickness of the air within the room had become suffocating. Gripping the door handle to exit, the pair of angered and disgruntled eyes turned over his shoulder at the final intrusion of a sickening voice.

"You never had a choice in playing this 'game'. Don't embrace that flawed illusion; it was you who started this."

* * *

Peering out from behind the safety of the wall in the Mitchell's yard, Winry watched as the patrolling police car made it's way down the street. A hand coming to her chest, Winry sunk down to her knees. 

"This isn't fair, I'm feeling guilty and I'm hiding like a criminal," she crossed her eyes in confusion before finally shaking her fist at the air, "I didn't do anything wrong! They must be getting a kick out of this."

With the firm thrust of her fists down at her sides, Winry returned to her feet and promptly marched herself in through the Mitchell's front door. The days she'd spent here had felt uncomfortably overwhelming; overwhelmed at the size of the home, overwhelmed by the misery of the family, overwhelmed by the uncomfortable feeling of the occupants, and mostly overwhelmed by the vast nothingness the house possessed. Sure there were things: paintings, rugs, lamps, vases, and who knew what else to decorate this fine house… but there was still this chilling feeling of nothingness.

She decided it was a good thing she was going to stay with Gracia, "First thing, finding that damn tool bag."

It was a natural response any person would have to a situation like hers; ask someone if they'd seen it. Who could Winry ask? No one. Again, the house and its overwhelming void seemed intimidating. There was no way she'd bring herself to ask that nurse; the less Winry saw of her the better. What there was for security wasn't much help either, but at least they didn't hit back.

Starting at one end, and moving through to the other, Winry opened room doors, closet doors, linen doors, the attic trap door, anything with a door handle, to see if some how someone had wandered by and tucked it out of the way. It took what felt like hours to cover the top two floors of the massive building, never encountering a soul as she did so. Her socked feet echoed in the hallow air; she'd sneeze from the dust created, and it sounded so loudly that she feared the windows would shatter.

Holding position at the farthest wall of the building; Winry stood, with arms folded, brow done in knots, and jaw clenched in absolute frustration, "I bet someone stole it…"

She stared bullets down the main floor hall: her final canvassing grounds. With the firm grip of her hand, Winry flung open every door that had been left unlocked. Room after room of dining, studying, conferencing, book storage, kitchen storage; the living room, family room, the library…

"There!!" Winry shrieked at the sight of her tool bag, propped up against the end of a shelf of books. Like a child searching for Easter candy, Winry swept into the room and scooped up the case into the tight hold of her arms.

"Oh I missed you, I didn't want to have to replace you… you have…" she dropped the case down onto the ground, giddy as a little schoolgirl she opened it, "my favourite wrench set, my favourite bits, my favourite drill… AH!" she lay down on her side upon the fuzzy rug beneath the furniture of the room, "thank goodness I can leave now. Why didn't I see this the other fifty times I looked into the room?"

"You make a lot of noise, where are you going?"

Winry sat up abruptly, her head sharply turning to the voice in the doorway. In some state of relief, a sheepish grin ran over her face as she looked to the Mitchell's young girl, "…I'm going to visit a family friend for a while."

"You're a weird girl," entirely unfazed and unresponsive to Winry's reactions, the little girl's ponytail atop her head swayed as she approached, "you're a bad girl too. You opened doors and went in rooms without asking. That's a no-no," she sat herself in front of Winry and her tool case.

Frowning at the child's abrupt and un-composed speech, Winry moved to her knees; catching the refraction of light that bounced off the pendant around the child's neck, "I wasn't bad, I didn't open any door that was locked. Besides, I was looking for something that was mine and if it was a bad thing to look in all these rooms, no one told me that," stemming from the discovery of one of her favourite possession and the reassurance that she did not have to return to this house, the decision made to conduct a solitary investigation came down, "if it makes the situation better Nina, I'm sorry for intruding."

At the mention of the name, the girl's face slowly tightened with a deliberate look of suspicion, "Nina?" her voice steadying a flat and vacant tone.

"Isn't that your name?" it was as good a time as any to ask; the child was there, no one around to influence the girl's answer, and she would be able to find out if the girl had any idea about what the two of them had suspected.

The baby's cry from upstairs interrupted the stalled line of questioning. Before Winry had time to completely organize her train of thought, her young companion had drifted back to the door.

"Miss Winry," came the child's innocent voice, a far cry different than anything in the preceding conversation, "I'm going to be a good big sister like you said, please wait for me."

As she vanished around the door, Winry's head tipped at the sudden change in the girl's disposition. Pushing to her feet and leaving the tool bag where it lay, she moved abruptly to the door, "Hang on, you're going to need a--"

The hall's emptiness silenced Winry; the only thing resonating off the walls was the vibration of the child's cry on the floor above. Neither direction the hall extended down revealed any trace of the little girl.

Winry's unease evolved into a dash down the empty hallway, tearing a path towards the main house entrance. Coming to a stand still at the bottom of the main staircase, the only thing carrying a trace of existence in the sunlit rotunda continued to be the baby's cry. Her hand gripped the stair rail cautiously as she took the climb one step at a time.

Nerves growing, Winry became spooked by the silence and completed her ascent at a run. Turning down the hall, she kept her pace until the familiar decorative door hangings of the baby's room greeted her. Without hesitation, she pushed the door open and barged into the curtain drawn room.

She frowned instantly, looking at the tiny baby howling from beyond the crib rails, "Does no one pay any attention to this child?" Eyeing every corner for a hidden presence intent on startling her again, Winry finally huffed, "What was up with 'be a good big sister'? That twerp disappeared."

Unlike last time, the baby's crying did not cease as Winry approached the crib, though her nose picked up what was upsetting the infant, "Poor little thing, I'm sorry you feel icky in that, it must be uncomfortable. I'll get you a new diaper."

She was thankful the room was neatly laid out; a pre-organized setup of baby wipes and fresh diapers neatly lined a table near the window. Setting everything down inside the crib, Winry looked around the room to see if there was somewhere she could put the baby that didn't involve leaning over the railing. Finding nowhere suitable, Winry rose to her tiptoes and leaned into the crib.

"See, Aunty Winry's going to make it all better. Now then…" Winry rolled up the long pink nighty the child slept in.

"What are you doing!?"

This time, the assaulting voice of Nina in the doorway did not startle Winry from her task. She did not turn around, nor did she even acknowledge the noise; it was simply an echo in her thoughts. Nina had intruded too late; the soft tips of Winry's fingers brushed over the child's belly as her own heart rate began to rise, beating uncomfortably in recognition of what she saw.

"Weren't you told not to touch Diana?"

"Diana?" Winry's hand lifted as she finally lowered from her tiptoes. Eyes wide with concern for the crying child, she turned her concentration over to the disapproving Nina, "Did you draw this on Diana's tummy?"

"Draw what?" the little face frowned profusely back at Winry.

Crouching down to meet the child at eye level, Winry forced a sympathetic expression onto her face, "Lying is wrong, Nina. Someone drew a circle and a star on the baby's tummy."

"I'm not lying," Her frown evolving into an extreme pout, the girl looked miserably back to Winry, "Mrs. Mitchell's hand drew that on Diana, these hands didn't," she held her palms for Winry to see.

Rising back to her feet, Winry brushed her hair off her shoulders and stepped back to the crib once more. Her hands reached in and pulled the pink nighty entirely off of the crying baby, "Why would she do something like that?" Her hand traced over the lines.

"I don't know that!" the child responded to Winry's rhetorical question.

Folding her arms on the top of the crib railing, Winry rested her chin while continuing her visual interrogation of the art, "What kind of alchemist was this lady," her eyes clouded over with a serious tone as she began to chew on her lip, "how could Mrs. Mitchell draw this… just like the one we found on Roze's baby."

"Roze?"

Winry shook her head, "I'll call home later." Attempting to set aside her confusion long enough to tend to the baby, she unraveled the fresh diaper and set it next to the crying infant within the crib.

Stepping up next to Winry, the little girl looked up to her with wide, curious eyes – a harmless voice reemerging, "Who is this Roze and baby that you know?"

"No one special," Winry's wary disposition shifted to meet the untrustworthy expression held in Nina's eyes. As she undid the tape holding on the child's diaper, Winry offered a simple invitation for assistance, "would you show me you're a good big sister and throw this out for me?" she pulled the soiled diaper away from the baby.

Glancing into the crib before Winry reacted, the little girl, bearing so much resemblance to the abused memory of Nina, curled up a side of her mouth in amusement of what lay in the crib, "Sure."

* * *

_"Alchemy is a science where you need to understand the structure of matter; once you have that understanding, you can break it down and rebuild it. Since it is part of science, the laws of nature apply. You can't create something out of nothings, so something must be given up in order to create whatever it is you wanted. The theory is called 'Equivalent Trade'; or I think your physics texts here refer to it as The Law of Conservation. The underlying principal is basically: you cannot turn a piece of paper into a tree, or vice versa – you need to have your ingredient's mass match your final intended mass. If you understand the procedure correctly, you can use it to turn lead into gold - which you shouldn't do because it's taboo. In order to get the process going, you need the elemental ingredients for what you're going to recompose and a properly functioning sigil to circulate the power. Depending on your type of sigil, you can do various things, but if it backfires, or you don't have the proper ingredients in your equation, the alchemy process will eat you. Make sense?" _

_- - - -_

Tightening the bag's strap across her chest, Brigitte continued her canvas of the exterior of this molding boulder and concrete built structure. She ran her fingertips along the external portion of the towering walls of an ancient building with no entrance. Again she glanced up to the stained glass windows built in far too high off the ground for her to even consider climbing through. Catching the glimpse of the sun's rising rays, Brigitte turned over her shoulder to see the bands of diluted sunlight filter around the un-kept and uncared for housing within the community. She slid her camera bag off her hip and onto her backside; she continued to walk the wide circle around this impenetrable cathedral.

Stopping to bring another building into consideration, Brigitte continued to wonder if the church in the lot beside this monument was connected in some way. For the second time, Brigitte decided to canvass the adjacent church; by now she'd memorized the circumference of the tower she could not get into. The little feeling inside her stomach told her that breaking into a church was wrong; no matter how decrepit it looked. Again she prodded at the rusting door handles and knobs to see if someone had mistakenly left it open; an open church door meant she'd be welcomed. Pacing around to the far side of the building, Brigitte's eyes again looked up to the partially open window – her fingertips skimmed along the bottom of the frame as she stood on her tiptoes.

Stepping back, she swung her hefty camera bag around to the front of her left hip. She rummaged through one of the pockets; she produced a brown skin wallet.

"Oh no, you bad little hoodlums, please don't take my wallet," Brigitte's voice carried a melodramatic drawl as she stood alone in muddy grass below the window, "Oh no, please don't throw it inside. How ever will I get it back? Oh!" with the flick of her wrist, she tossed the wallet through the window, "Oh dear me, whatever shall I do now?"

Dropping her bag from her shoulders, Brigitte placed it on its tallest end beneath the window. Wrapping the shoulder strap around her ankle, she stepped onto the bag for an extra foot and a half of height. Not small enough to fit through the space in the window, her hands gripped the bottom of the rusted pane and slowly pushed it upwards.

"Seems I must… sneak into this run down… house of God… to retrieve my wallet. Forgive me," her voice choked as she struggled with the window; nearly tumbling into the dirt once it finally popped.

* * *

Winry's hand shook unsteadily over her mouth as she took another step back - the echo of her shriek eventually subsiding. Her breathing pattern remained inconsistent with the tense feeling she could not shake, "What is that?" 

Tilting her head to the side, an unimpressed look grew across the pudgy face of Nina, "That is so sad. Even I know what that is."

Trying to calm herself from the unexpected sight, Winry turned her widened eyes into the malevolent stare of the child, "Isn't… the baby supposed to be a _girl_?"

"It is both, Miss Winry."

Winry spun around so fast the long ponytail slapped across her face. Taking an abrupt step backwards, her behaviour waded in unease at the darkened silhouette of the nurse standing at the doorway of the baby's room.

"The child is a hermaphrodite," the bluntness of the nurse's voice shot Winry between the eyes.

"What!?"

"A female infant from this side, fused with a male infant from another. Similar process that would be used to create a chimera," the nurse took a step into the room, shutting the door behind herself.

"What are you talking about? This side and another…" Winry's head shook quickly as she took a distancing step backwards – only to find she had backed up against the crib where the crying and naked baby lay. Her eyes glanced over to Nina as the girl moved silently away; her soft lengths of brown hair drifting out behind. Unsettled by the girl's lack of concern, Winry's voice swept back to the nurse, "WHY would you have a baby like that?"

The answer was given without hesitation, "Because it was far more efficient, and convenient, for our purpose than previous methods," though she addressed Winry, the nurse's attention followed Nina as she moved to a corner of the room.

* * *

_"The church my dad goes to has a sigil etched into the floor for ascetics. It's done with a complicated design and looks rather convoluted. If anyone were ever able to get power to circulate in it, it would hiccup and who knows what would happen." _

"Can I see it? I want to take a picture of it."

"It's a private church, members only, and no girls."

"…Weeellll, where is it?"

"You'd never want to go there. It's off in the old district, beyond the university. It's just a run down old concrete structure with some stain glass windows. Even if you wanted to take a picture, it's too dark. I'll draw you some circles instead."

_- - - -_

It was as though the people able to get into this place had vast amounts of trust placed upon them; all but a single door had been left unlocked. And it was this one locked door Brigitte and her hairpin fought with; tucked in behind one of the tattered curtains hanging in the main congregation hall. Her other hairpin had been used to clip the wall tapestry away so the rising sunlight could help her pick this lock. Something about the click she could hear in the doorknob caught her attention; bending the pin in her teeth, Brigitte shoved it back into the keyhole and finally heard the unlocking of the latch.

Stepping back, she finally turned the handle and pulled the heavy door out from its socket. Brigitte was surprised to find no dust teased her nose as she opened it; every other door had exploded with a dirty cloud when she'd opened them. This door did not.

"I'm going in the right direction it seems," stepping into the moderately declining stairwell, Brigitte pulled the door shut behind herself and made her way off into the darkness.

* * *

Utilizing a fierce gaze that proved ineffective in warding off to the encroaching nurse, Winry could feel her heart rate continue to rise. Forgetting her location within the room, she stepped sharply back into the crib once more. Startled by the baby's cry from the jolt, Winry turned over her shoulder, caught off guard by the baby's noise. 

The nurse caught her lapse of attention and swept forwards, "You shouldn't concern yourself with her."

Winry shrieked when the corner of her eye caught the woman's arm reaching for her; ducking from the grasp, she spun away from the crib. Scrambling to regain her balance, Winry turned deeper into the curtain-sealed room, finally repositioning herself at the opposite side of the crib; creating a makeshift barrier between herself and the aggression displayed by the woman. Glancing to the window, Winry pulled the rod off the blinds and held it out defensively in front of herself.

"What do you think you're doing?" Winry held her quivering voice as firm as the punishing tremor of her heartbeat would allow.

Disinterested in Winry's defensive posture, the voided expression of the nurse turned over to Nina; watching the child embed herself within the stuffed animals and dolls decorating the rocking chair. Nina looked back to the nurse with a casual and somewhat pleasant expression as she tucked her legs into the menagerie.

Remaining square to the situation, Winry's eyes followed to Nina as well; nothing seemed to explain why she remained oblivious to the unfolding situation.

The sound of the baby's cry was no longer heard by the occupants of the room.

* * *

_"It seems that alchemy picks up characters from older European languages. I've seen Runic and Greek characters like Omega, Delta, Phi and Psi. Zhe, iotified I, and others were taken from the Cyrillic alphabet. Some of the elemental symbols are also Greek and are used to identify planets or Gods. It's really bizarre; God has nothing to do with alchemy. But these Greeks were really smart, all sorts of geometry for perfect flow; put a circle around a tetrahedron or hexagram and it's a great beginner's sigil. Hexagrams are used for showing harmony in opposites; man and woman, fire and water usually. A tetrahedron weighs one opposite more than the other. A pentagram is a bit more interesting; it represents symmetry and symmetry of the human body. If you want, you can use tin, mercury, iron, lead and copper elements as main conductors. If you indicate in your circle that the pentagram will be used 'upside down' the applications are entirely different. I met someone who wanted to use an alchemical pentagram upside down." _

"How does it become different? What does it do?"

"Ummm… well, I discovered that in Greek mythology the upside down pentagram represents a gateway from 'there' to 'here' and also 'here' to 'there'. It was said that a baby was placed at this gateway in order for the worlds to initially appear and you had to cross through this gateway in order to find 'the truth' or obtain 'wisdom'. Anyone who comes in contact with this gate or ventures through it successfully comes back with tons of 'wisdom'."

_- - - -_

"Wow…" Brigitte's eyes marveled at the colours the morning sun was creating through the stain glass windows, "Mr. Elric was right, it is too dark in here still… but it looks so pretty."

Stepping away from the outer circumference of the room, Brigitte made her way to the center of the structure; she looked up to the towering ceiling stories above where she stood, far higher than she'd witnessed from outside. She wondered if the place ever flooded; it was dug into the ground, rather than on ground level.

Her shoes echoed as she crossed the room, eyes following the decorations adoring the walls. It was nothing like the church upstairs. This place was kept and tidied. The wall hangings with pictorial descriptions she did not recognize were new and obviously maintained. There was a thin layer of dust that had begun to settle; she could see the particles rise in the room as she moved – the sunlight created speckled shadows floating in mid air.

Brigitte looked around the room; there were other doors, and she could not figure out where they led to – could the deteriorating houses on the block have access to this place? Or did they simply lead somewhere else? Were there more rooms than just this one? She wanted to go see. The train of thought was distracted as the smooth floor beneath her feet became warped. Having approached the center of the room, her toes touched upon the outer rings of this Transmutation Circle she'd heard about. Tearing her bag open, she pulled out the paper of symbols and circles Ed had done up for her the day before.

"This is it!" Setting her bag down outside the circumference of the circle, Brigitte walked around the engraving upon the floor, "it looks like a drawing for gypsies or something," she started to giggle, "I want to know how to use it!"

* * *

"Just who exactly are you?" Winry's concentration returned to the nurse who'd begun circling the crib towards her. 

"That's irrelevant, do not concern yourself with it," the voice carried an obvious lack of interest for the question.

Her socks brushing against the floor with each countering step made, Winry wrinkled her nose as she continued to retreat, "You're the baby's nurse, you've seen that design, I know what it is. Are you an alchemist?"

"I have an awareness of alchemy," a mused grin came onto the nurse's expression.

"What's it doing there?" Winry's hardened voice demanded, referring to the sigil upon the infant's stomach.

The woman mused over the question for an elongated moment before replying, "It's an experiment. Care to partake?"

Her face curled with dismay for the statement, "Disgusting…" having dealt with enough abnormalities in her life, Winry narrowed her eyes with an abstract question, "are you even human?"

"Everyone starts out human," it was Nina's childless voice that answered.

Winry grit her teeth and tightened her grip around the rod in her hands; the corner of her eyes finding Nina, but soon revealing she'd backed up into a corner of the baby's room. Wiping a tear of nervous sweat from her forehead, Winry kept a vigil on Nina as she spoke again, "Is the baby human?"

"Diana is human," the nurse's carefree response intruded, "The Philosopher's Stone allowed for Diana to remain human."

* * *

_"Okay, well I don't want to do that, I'm not that adventurous. But let's pretend I want something simple, and I want to make a nice vase for my mom. If I draw a circle that looks like this… do I always have to give up something in order to make the vase?" _

"Well, it makes sense right? You can't make something out of nothing."

"I suppose, maybe I'm thinking of magic. But what if I don't have enough to make the vase?"

"Then the transmutation will rebound and the alchemist's body will be used to fill in what's missing."

"…Ow. No way around that?"

"Only the Philosopher's Stone can break the laws of equivalence."

"What's that?"

"It's too dangerous to worry about. It's not something just anyone can create, it's not something just anyone can use, and it's not something anyone should ever want to use. Alchemy's principle is equivalent trade, and that thing is anything but equivalent. We'll just stick with drawing circles and rearranging structures for now."

_- - - -_

From a little baggie, Brigitte touched up the little smear of flash powder in the dish placed upon a tripod. Snapping a match from a package in her bag, she lit the paper strand hanging from the tray and took three wide strides away.

"Okay…" her eyes watched the paper burn within the tiny thin strip of flame, "three… two…" she turned her camera forward and listened for the initial crackle that always occurred right before the magnesium ignited. She snapped her shutter as the powder lit the room once more.

"Perfect! Now for the other side," snatching up the tripod and tray in one hand, camera in the other, and bag over her shoulder; Brigitte hauled her setup across the room. Occupied by the traveling struggle she found herself with, she never picked up on the intrusive sound that came from the opening of one of the doors providing entrance into the hall.

* * *

"There's no way," Winry's voice challenged the statement; an anxious vibration tightened her shoulders, "No way… Al used all of that stone for Ed. There was nothing left!" 

"That statement is incorrect. Other's played with that power," the nurse tilted her head in thought, "some still do."

"Someone else…?"

Nina finally directed her attention to Winry; she did not have to see the girl's eyes fall upon her to feel the merciless gaze cutting her down, "An embarrassment known as Shou Tucker."

"A dead shell of a body once known as Mrs. Lyra Mitchell," the nurse's behaviour followed suit.

Winry's arms slowly fell from their defensive position; she ran the names repeatedly through her mind. She recognized them, "…Shou? …Lyra?"

"Perhaps…" sitting forward from her perch, Nina leaned out from the comfort she'd surrounded herself with, "… perhaps your friend Roze has forgotten a detail somewhere along the way? Though, I don't think you'll be able to call her and ask."

Winry's eyes widened, the feign of pity from the voice sent a shiver down her spine; why was Roze implied like that? It did nothing but confirm her distrust in the illusion the child formed around herself. Yet, the demeanor was enthralling and inescapable; swept up in its veil, Winry mistakenly lost track of the nurse's position.

* * *

_"How did you find all this out? With alchemy and Greek mythology?" _

"I spent a lot of time in the libraries in London, I've been fascinated with this long before you were born. Dad took me to Greece for a bit a few years back, which was where I found a fair bit more information. The ancient Greeks have far more knowledge that I could have wished for; I bet they could have understood and used alchemy. I would have loved to have understood some of this information five or six years ago."

"Why back then?"

"That's a long story, don't worry about it."

_- - - -_

"What the hell are you doing?"

Brigitte shrieked, spilling her powder on the floor at the startling deep voice. Emerging from one of the doors around the room, the lumbering balding man associated with the sound appeared, shrouded in the mystery of this colour-lit room.

"I'm leaving!" Brigitte announced sharply as if the answer had been preprogrammed.

"What WERE you doing?" the voice challenged her. It had waited for her to set up all this equipment before speaking out, curious to find out what this young intruder was up to.

"Um, I was told of a charm on this floor and I wanted to take a picture of it for my art class at school," swiftly Brigitte dumped her camera back into the bag and rushed to disassemble the tripod where her powder once rested.

"This area is restricted, did you break in?" the man approached her swiftly; having mastered the art of silent approach, his feet were never heard making contact with the ground.

Sweeping the powder back into the tray with her hands, Brigitte stumbled through her words, "I wanted to come into the church, but it was locked. Some boys teased me because I was going to cry and threw my wallet in through the window. I had to climb in to get it back; I saw an open door and wandered down the hall. I came out here, I'm sorry I was only cur—AH!" her voice pierced out, echoing within the room; the man's firm grip of her shirt hauled her off her knees. His other hand snatched her face, holding her out in front of himself.

"Bullshit. That door is locked."

"Let me go," Brigitte's eyes swelled with tears at his bruising grip, "I swear it wasn't."

With a slap across her face, the man threw her to the ground amidst the photography powder. His cold eyes cut shards out of her, "You're lying in a place of worship, God does not look favourably upon you today."

Brigitte's hands came to her face where his hand once dug in. Shaken upon the ground, she watched the man turn and walk back into the darkened exit from which he'd initially emerged.

* * *

Before ever realizing she'd reacted to it, Winry had fallen out of the way of the nurse's reaching arm once more. Scrambling to her feet, she'd not advanced more than two steps before the grip of the woman's hand came to her side. With unexplainable force, Winry was swept from her feet into the crib siding, crumpling down in a heap. The contents of the crib, baby and all, spilled out across the floor as it toppled over. 

"That was careless."

Nina's little voice barely registered in Winry's mind as she felt the suffocating, finger nailed grasp of the nurse's hand close down around her neck; a thumb pressing down into the clef where her collarbones met. Clawing at the crushing grip, Winry found herself on her back upon the floor. Desperately kicking, she turned herself enough to get a foot into the nurse's face; though, no matter how hard she thrashed, the hold refused to relent. Her head began to throb from the inability to breathe; she could do nothing but panic and  
fight with a merciless hand.

"This isn't very fun," came Nina's whining voice into the struggling noises within the room. Her gaze drifting over to the baby crying out from the floor, "so careless…"

"Are you too young to see a dead body?" the nurse glanced up from her project with a musing smirk; it was the roll of Nina's eyes which dismissed the question.

The distraction Nina provided had allowed Winry an opening; putting her heel into the nurse's chin with all the force she had left, the grip finally relented. With a second kick to push her back, Winry scrambled away upon her hands and knees, gasping for air. Unable to overcome the dizzying stars and light headed feeling, she could not rise to her feet; trembling under her own weight. Winry watched as the nurse simply rubbed her chin.

As if given time to collect herself, Winry's hand came to her neck while she continued to pant; her eyes shaking with the terrified gaze she handed out to the two other occupants of the room.

* * *

_"If it's just like that, how come no one can make alchemy work?" _

"Because no one really understands the structure of matter and the flow of nature. I can tell you all about the ingredients, you can have all the knowledge and formulas in the world, but unless you're able to understand how nature intertwines them, it doesn't do you any good."

"Isn't that what scientists try to do?"

"An alchemist is different from a research scientist. An alchemist needs to understand structure of matter and process of nature at the basic level of existence. One is all, all is one. Your soul communicates with nature to understand it's composition because you are essentially part of nature's flow; your soul feeds that information to your mind for you to understand and interpret, and your body becomes the vessel used to carry that information - feeding the knowledge-power it to the circle to initiate the transmutation. It's sort of like the idea behind quintessence. And that's only the first step; you need to repeat similar processes for decomposition and reconstruction. The process is breached at the mutual understanding your soul has with nature and the feedback your mind receives to understand all that information. Since no one's able to properly do this, alchemy isn't possible."

"Do you realize… how ludicrous you sound?"

"YOU asked."

_- - - -_

"Shit shit shit," Brigitte scrambled to close her bag; the photography equipment jammed into it a as> best she could. Panic ran through her body as she scrambled to collect her things before the man came back, "I'm in so much trouble." Her hands trembled and fumbled uneasily as she locked the clasp on her bag and threw it over her shoulder. The sun had risen high enough by now that the coloured windows shed their light down upon her position at the center of the room.

"That's far enough for you."

The deep voice of the man sent a tremor through her body; she wished to curl up like a young child hoping to disappear, "I'm sorry, I'm leaving, I'll never come back. I'll pay the fine for trespassing." Her eyes turned shaken over her shoulder as the man stood between beams of light in what was still the darkness.

"This is unfortunate," the man's voice hinted at remorse, but not enough to negate his actions.

Brigitte's scream echoed in the ceilings of the hall; she curled to her knees at the center of the piece of work she'd come to admire, hands gripped over her head as she'd been taught to do for an air raid. The echo of the first of six bullets from within the gun barrel unloaded in the hall overtook her voice. The shattering sound of the gun rang out until the empty click of a non-existent seventh bullet snapped in the room.

It was an unnecessary empty shot; Brigitte had fallen silent after three.

* * *

"Aren't you going to run?" the nurse asked nonchalantly. 

Winry did not respond, though it made the urge just that much greater. She wiped a trail of sweat from her forehead before her hand returned to cradling the sore spots on her neck, continuing to regain her breath.

"A wise man would run to his freedom."

"Shut up!" Winry screamed in response; her eyes clenched shut as she shifted her weight to her knees – her arms trembling too much to support her any longer. Cracking open her eyes, the line of sight shifted to Nina once more; the malevolent smile of amusement the child carried had grown. Winry watched it through the swelling of tears in her eyes; it felt as though she could do nothing to subdue this fear overtaking her body. Her attention focused temporarily on the baby squawking on the floor, between herself and the exit.

"I wonder…" the frightening female voice grabbed Winry's ear, "who'll help that remaining Elric child… if you continue to sit there afraid?"

It was the implication of Al that pulled Winry to her feet finally; like a sprinter moving from starting blocks, she burst forward to the door. Disregarding the eyes within the room that watched her, Winry gave up concern for the baby on the floor and jumped over it as she ran.

"Miss. Winry Rockbell…"

Her pulse pounded in her ears; the beads of sweat bounced off her temples as she stumbled into the closed door.

"It's not going to be you."

Her left hand clasping around the doorknob, Winry's watering eyes shot wide at the familiar sound of a handclap echoing within the room.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**  
Check out my user profile for next chapter updates.

Whoops. Don't worry, everything that just made you go "wtf… o.o;" will get answered, will be explained, and should make sense eventually (I wouldn't have put it in if I didn't have answers).

Oh! Copyright/source notices:

- Opening quote taken from "Hermaphrodite Child of the Sun and Moon". Copyright Mike Brenner 1997.  
- Edward's convoluted calculation of getting a rocket into space taken from "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" by Robert H. Goddard 1919.

Digressing…

I was pleased to accidentally find Goddard's report in a PDF on the Internet --purr--

The Greeks were smart… Ed is smart… they're both a whole lot smarter than me --roar--. And, oh yes, that explanation Ed gave about the upside down pentagram IS part of Greek mythology. Fu fu fu…

Pentagram – your standard 5-point star.

Hexagram – looks just like the Jewish Star of David. The triangular centerpiece for the Ouroborus symbol and many other alchemy things you've seen.

Tetrahedron – It's what a 3D symmetrical triangle looks like when it's unfolded flat in 2D. Like a big triangle with a little triangle inside.

Sigil – Ed refers to the transmutation circle as a sigil for Brigitte, sort of like trying to relay it in layman's terms for her to understand. 'Transmutation circle' would be a really foreign word for her.

Ottoberg – the name of the dude who got rushed on the stage by Hitler.

Speaking of Hitler… Hoho-papa VS Hitler… yikes 6.6;

Dante had a good thing going for her, may as wellmanipulateit.

Ed is in his element talking about alchemy.

**Chapter 59 Feedback**

Lots of feedback LMAO.

lady elithraniel - This chapter answered all your questions, ne? :3. Gave new ones too, ya?

kimmycat – No, you didn't miss what disease Edward had. It wasn't mentioned, but I will mention it eventually… but not yet :3;;;

SxStrngSamurai13 - Don't worry about the late review, it was nice to see in my email box n.n;;. I hope this chapter classifies as 'interesting' :D;;

chibi-sherri – I like the idea of an FMA movie... I love FMA... but I am currently suffering from the gut feeling that says "... injustice will be done..." --le sigh--. Cummon BONES, prove me wrong. I will keep this fic going (and complete it!! I've done the 'not completed' thing before) regardless of what goes on in the movie.

Queen of Vegetasei – Poor Nina, she's the abused tool (that everyone loves) of the FMA world. I feel so bad for her. Hitler may have been scary beyond comprehension, but he was also smart and manipulative… which sucks for Hoho-papa and Ed 6.6;;;. As for Hoho-papa and the good dad thing; I forget who corrupted me to that idea XD I think I swore after epi 50 I'd hate him forever… but obviously that didn't happen. Ed is problem child of his time. And ENVY! lol, that comes back, don't worry – what fun would it be if I didn't let that stew for a bit?

SidhePrincessAislinn – Good question. I'm honestly not sure, and I'd almost be tempted to say his rotting has either stopped, or slowed to a crawl. Since Hohenheim's rotting is caused by an alchemical process, I'd like to say defiantly the rotting has stopped… but then you'd be able to argue quite a few plot hole points about Ed and Hoho's existence on the AU side of the gate. It's a grey area. For the purpose of this fic, the fact Hoho could die from the rotting body will be a non-issue, it's either stopped or slowed to a crawl. I've given Hoho FAR more to worry about than his rotting body --smiles innocently--

Baka Neko and the Y group – How many chapters… um… --scratches head-- let's say that this fic will be 25 chapters (an entire season). Don't hold me to that, there's just SO much on Al's side he has to wade through – BONES would need an entire new season to get Ed back, if not more (IMHO anyways). Knowing me I'll be like "OH! Have to include that, and that, and a little bit of that, take that out, oh Al needs to learn this, have to do this right" and this'll end up being a lot longer than originally forecasted. Someone's going to come along at the end of this fic, see this gawd awful word count of one bazillion or some stupid number and not read it LMAO 6.6;;;;;

Ouatic7 – You are right, Ed's side is not progressing like Al's side. On Ed's side, it's FAR harder for him to progress like Al is – the key element Ed is missing on his side to progress anywhere is alchemy; which is what Al has going for him on his side. Al has the resources, people and knowledge available to him to potentially progress (even if a bunch of them keep disappearing on him) – there's just Ed and Hohenheim on the other side of the gate with no idea what to use as their starting point. Ed is working on the idea of the rocket (which is why he hangs around with Oberth still) but he also realizes that he could be well into his 50's before the stupid thing gets off the ground. I don't want to do a disservice to history and have Ed suddenly build a rocket that'll take him into space – which we all know won't work anyways. What I can see happening with Ed is a 'backtrack' – sort of like the mental processes he's gone through and other ideas he's had to get home (I haven't worked that out yet tho). I want Ed to have enough to do with history that he experiences it, but not enough for him to show up our Social Studies or science textbooks :D;;. I'm going to run Ed through the history ringer and see how that challenges his personality – if he gets back, I want there to be some sort of noticeable personality change (for the better or for the worse) that shows he's "been thru hell, survived and come back". Just like those ancient Greeks :3


	11. An Omnipresent Void

**He Who Searches For Himself**

_Keeping an eye upon her youngest son perched next to the sink, a towel draped over his outstretched legs, another towel fumbling around in his hands as he made a continual attempt to dry his mother's dishes; Trisha treated another plate to the rinse water. Trisha couldn't help but giggle at the delight dancing in Alphonse's eyes, having finally been allowed to help his older brother dry the glass dishes. _

_Setting his plate off with the rest, Ed pushed to his knees and leaned into his younger brother's battle with the dish in his lap, "See Al, if you turn the bowl on it's side, put the cloth there, and turn it like that in a circle, it dries lots faster."_

_Following along with his brother's motions, wide-eyed Al did as instructed. As if a valued trophy, Al gripped the rim of his bowl and held it out for his mother to see, "Mommy, see. I done bowls too."_

_"Yes you did," Trisha's tone tingled with delight as she gave a huge grin in reply to Al's far larger one._

_From the corners of both Edward and Trisha's eye, the pair caught as Al tipped the bowl, only to have it slip from his grasp. Trisha was unable to move fast enough to catch the dish as it bounced off the counter's edge, and shattered on the hardwood floor._

_"Oh dear," Trisha's hand came to her cheek as she stepped back from the sharp mess, "oh, Alphonse," Trisha swept a few pieces aside with her slipper as she reached for Al, his lower lip trembling as his eyes watered up. Not given time to grab her son, Trisha took a startled step backwards at the unannounced handclap echoing from the top of the stairs. The transmutation light, and the decent of their father from the second floor, was enough to distract Al from his tears._

_"See, Daddy fixed it," Ed pointed down to the ground as he tried to get Al's attention._

_Trisha's hands came to her hips as Hohenheim crossed the kitchen, picked up the bowl, and sat it down in his youngest son's lap, "All better, right?"_

_"Thank you Daddy," Al's voice choked, the miserable look still in his eyes._

_Hohenheim's hand came up and ruffled Al's hair before cheering the miserable look with a kiss to the forehead, "No tears. Remember what went wrong, and don't let yourself do it that way again. You'll do just fine when you try again."_

* * *

**Chapter 62 - An Omnipresent Void**

With the flick of the clasps on his briefcase, Ed flipped it open. It had been in the back of his mind for weeks, and since that unpleasant Tuesday when he'd discovered a new dislike for this type of humanity, Edward produced an unhealthy piece of curiosity.

"What's that?" Hohenheim raised his eyebrows in question; he finally got to find out why his son was staring bullets at his briefcase.

Standing up from his spot on the floor of his father's home study, Ed tossed the magazine onto the man's desk, "I picked it up in Vienna. It's a magazine that Ekert guy publishes, edits, whatnot. The centre article is about that Adolf Hitler guy everyone seems so enthralled over."

Taking the magazine up, Hohenheim leafed through the pages, "Why do you have it?"

"I was curious. I had some shop owner berate me for being German, then threw that at me," firmly stepping up to his father's desk, Ed leaned over the glossy pages of this magazine pinched in his father's hands, "it's something like that which makes me glad I'm not German."

Setting the magazine down with the centre page open, Hohenheim slowly shook his head, "He has a way with people."

"He's a boar," Ed simply scoffed, turning up his nose, "leading his people into some unprovoked fight."

"It's called 'intimidation tactics', Edward," Hohenheim looked to Edward from above the rim of his glasses.

Spinning the magazine around so that he could read it right side up, Ed slapped his hands down on the desk, "I know that, and they're so desperate to feel good about themselves again that they'll listen to anything," he skimmed over the article slowly as he spoke, "I've read this thing maybe twenty times this week, and every time I read it my skin crawls; nothing but Aryan supremacy and the eradication of other types of people. This guy isn't for the good of Germany," he flicked a page over, pointing at the image printed of Adolf in the material, "this guy is not interested in the good of everyone."

"Edward," Hohenheim clasped his hands together over the desk as Ed raised an eyebrow at his father's long and exhausted sigh, "I'm thankful that you have blonde hair and white skin, it makes it far easier for you to pass as a German."

Snatching the magazine off the table, Ed threw it without care over to his briefcase on the floor, "Same goes for you."

Hohenheim's eyebrows rose at the unexpected comment.

"Hermann called earlier," it was an abrupt conversation change Ed made, "he was in a rush but mentioned something about Tilly wanting to do something tonight. I have a feeling I'm not going to be going to the university tomorrow with you; he said something about 'oh! Just because you have a patch on your eye, doesn't mean you can become a hermit'. They're going to call back."

Again Hohenheim sat silent, staring with a raised brow at the unprovoked spill of information. It would probably take him another hundred years to figure out the exact moments he could get this type of information out of his son; to save a headache, he normally let Ed come and go as he pleased, "Alright. Let me know what you're going to be up to when you find out."

Ed nodded and looked down at his briefcase without another word.

It was Hohenheim who had something else to contribute; he simply did not know how to present it. Choosing to remain silent for moments longer, he watched as Ed stuffed the magazine into his briefcase once more before taking a deep breath.

"Edward."

He glanced up, snapping the latches on the case shut.

Hohenheim tapped his pen on the desk, "We have a couple of new apprentices assigned to my division, Karl suggested I take one of them under my wing and let him contribute in my office."

"… Are you firing me?" Ed blinked, standing up straight.

The question made Hohenheim laugh, coming as a refreshing relief, "No no," he straightened his ponytail and stood up from the seat, tugging on his vest as he did so, "but why don't you take some time off."

Glancing away in thought, Ed considered the suggestion, "Well, I guess I could focus more on Hermann and his work."

"No, how about a vacation somewhere. Why don't you take a trip back to London?"

The following silence was almost as upsetting as Edward's cold response, "I'm not going back there."

"Why not?" though Hohenheim should have expected the response, he had been hoping Edward would be a little more willing to negotiate the offer, "there are a lot of people you haven't seen there in a long time."

"I'm NOT going to go to London. Why don't you send me somewhere else?"

"I called Doctor Wilson this morning, we talked about train accommodations, and he said he had no problem letting you stay with-"

Ed let the briefcase fall from his hands, "What the HELL do you think you're doing? You think you can ship me off to London without consulting me?" he had no problem challenging his father on this issue, "Even if I wanted to go to London, which I DON'T, you think I'd want to stay with him? Ship me off to Rome or Greece or Switzerland or somewhere… maybe ASK ME too."

Hohenheim reminded himself that he had to keep his cool for this, "Dr. Wilson treated you very well, you owe him a lot of thanks regardless if you like him or not," he didn't give Ed the opportunity to complain about his statement regarding the doctor, "If I'm going to get you a train ticket anywhere, it'll be somewhere I know you'll have a lot of familiar faces if there are any problems."

"Then I'm staying right here," Edward gave his briefcase a swift boot into the corner of his father's study as he turned away to the door.

"Edward," Hohenheim's voice rose, only to provoke a glare from over his son's shoulder, "I think you should go to London."

Gripping the door handle firmly with his left hand, Ed shot his look of flat refusal back to his father, "I think you should go to hell. I'm not going back to London," and he slammed the door behind himself.

* * *

"She didn't call at all in the last couple of days?" Al's voice quickly deflated as his grip on the telephone receiver weakened, "not since then? Okay." His eyes sagged as he slowly nodded his head to Roze's voice on the other end of the line, "no that's fine, I'll be okay. Could you just give Mrs. Hughes or me a call if she does show up in the next couple of days? It's a three day trip to Rizembool, so if she's on her way, there's still time for her to show up," as upbeat as he tried to hold his voice, Al's grey and sleep deprived expression could not hold the same enthusiasm, "no really, you don't need to come out. It's okay Roze, everything will be fine," a statement Al could not believe in himself.

Finally after the good byes, Al drifted off into a distant dream; slowly setting the telephone receiver back onto its cradle. The daydream was lonely. It was that hill his brother always sat on after having been scolded, embarrassed, or simply to show protest against whatever it was he was disapproving of that day. The sun rose, or the sun set, it didn't really matter. He simply stared off into the valley flanked by the train station at one end, the flowing river on the other, and just over his shoulder rose his house in the middle of the field. It was only he who sat there atop this hill – watching the world pass by. The train never stopped as it passed Rizembool station, no one waited on the platform, his brother never came to get him, his mother never called his name, the flashing lantern light never grabbed his attention. The vast blue sky, untainted with clouds, didn't even have birds.

The second ring of the phone startled Al; the empty expanse that the Rizembool field had embodied was now the white hallway walls he stood between. After the third ring, the phone had been answered. As much as he'd wanted to pick it up, Al left that task up to one of Mr. Mitchell's security escorts residing within the house. If it were for him, they'd tell him; though he figured by now they would be getting sick of his desperate eyes wondering if the call was actually for him.

And it wasn't.

Al picked himself up and walked down the hall without a sound. There wasn't any cue for it, and no specific purpose it would serve; Alphonse simply started to run. Not enough people existed in the house to stop him, so he ran this maze he'd gotten himself lost in; down a hall that he didn't care for, past people he did not know, within a house that was not his. The sleepless headache beat behind his eyes. He kept going until he entered one of the few spaces he'd grown familiar with, every thought in his mind was thankfully stopped by what distracted him from within this bedroom.

Two big, blue eyes looked up at him from where she sat on the bed, hair braided in frighteningly familiar pigtails trailing over her shoulders, "Why do you look so sad today?"

Al used the palm of his hand to rub one of his eyes, "I think I've lost someone again," he didn't want to sugar coat it; he'd grown too weary and concerned to pretend he felt all right.

"You can loose people?" Nina stood up on his bed, her socked feet leaving imprints as she stepped over the freshly made bed.

"I guess so," Al shrugged, sitting down on the bed, glancing up to Nina as she plunked herself down next to him, "I've gotten very good at it."

"I'm sorry that you loose people," Nina smoothed her dress out as she dangled her feet off the end of the bed, "that girl friend of yours isn't here today, did you loose her?"

"I don't know," Giving a shrug, Al glanced over to her, a hint of curiosity growing in the back of his mind, "why are you so friendly today? You never said much to me before."

"The nurse is busy doing things with Diana and my friend. I was helping her, but I got bored; I wanted to do something else," Nina put her hands behind her back as she shrugged.

"Your friend?" surprised by the statement, considering the nurse seemed to keep the children on a leash, Al began to frown, "Where is your nurse? Is she allowed to leave you alone like that?"

"She's somewhere. And I'm a big girl, I can do lots of things all by myself," again, Nina shrugged in response to the line of questions.

Al wasn't given a chance to think on the issue much longer; a knock came to his door.

"Sir," one of Mr. Mitchell's security attendants peered into the room, "the telephone is for you again."

Al's company with Nina ended there. Getting up and leaving the room without a goodbye, he followed the attendant back down through the house, "Do you know who's calling?"

"It's Ms. Hughes again," the man replied as if Al had become more of a hassle than much else.

Sitting down at the table with the phone, Al watched over his shoulder and waited for the attendant to leave before he spoke.

"Hello?"

"Alphonse?" Ms. Hughes voice sounded through faint static, "I'm glad you picked up."

The side of Al's lips curled as he heard Elysia's voice call out a hello from the background. Despite his amusement, Al couldn't resist going straight to what had him tied up in knots, "Ms. Hughes, have you heard anything from Winry?"

"That's what I called to talk to you about."

Al's heart rate shot up as his body stiffened; so wrapped up in his own concern, Al did not notice the set of prying eyes watching him.

"Elysia and I took a walk this morning, we walked the path Winry should have taken between my house and Mr. Mitchell's. We asked some of the shop owners if they'd seen her at all. A gentleman from a flower shop had his window broken yesterday when someone threw a black case from a military vehicle that sped by," Gracia's voice paused on the other end, Al had nothing in his mind that he could provide to the conversation, "I asked to see it; it was Winry's tool case."

The millions of possibilities that ran through Al's mind kept him from forming a response to Gracia's words.

"Her shoes were thrown from the car too, I found one in the street. The shop keeper picked up the other when he cleaned up the broken glass."

The potential for the possibilities grew worse with each word.

"Al, did anyone see Winry in the house yesterday evening? Does anyone know what time she picked up the tool case?"

"I…" Al tried desperately to clear his head; "I haven't asked many people if they saw Winry yesterday," there weren't too many people within the Mitchell household for Al to ask, "I thought she said she was going to call when she found the tool case, and you'd come to pick her up. I assumed she never made it here."

"I saw your pretty girl friend yesterday."

Al turned over his shoulder, startled by Nina's voice.

"Al? Al what was that?" Gracia's voice called into the receiver.

The receiver in Al's hand slowly fell away from his ear, his eyes widening as he watched Nina speak.

"She found her tool kit and I told her she was weird. She talked to it like a baby and hugged it. She said 'Oh this is my favourite wrench set, my favourite bits, my favourite drill' and other stuff. She said she was happy to leave my house. I asked why and she said she was going to visit a friend instead. And then she left."

Crouching down, the receiver resting on his shoulder, Al's wary gaze took Nina eye-to-eye, "When did this happen? Did she say why she walked back?"

"Yesterday evening. My nurse was on the phone and your friend didn't want to wait for her, so she walked."

"Alphonse!"

Gracia's insistent voice from the other end of the line finally caught his attention and Al slapped the receiver back to his ear.

"Al, I'm going to call-"

"No wait," Al interjected suddenly, clenching his fist as he did so "let me see Mr. Mitchell first."

* * *

The phone echoed throughout the house; ringing two… three… four…

Ed poked his head out of his room, "DAD! Get the PHONE!"

Five… six… seven…

"DAD!" Ed rushed out of his room, nearly tumbling down the stairs as he tried to make it before the tenth ring, "Son of a…" he picked up the phone sharply, "Hello?"

"Edward! I'm glad someone finally picked up."

Ed narrowed his eyes, not recognizing the voice over the static ridden line, "Who's calling?"

"It's Dietrich you foolish boy," the man's booming voice tried to conquer the crackling noise within the phone line.

Ed rolled his eyes, he did not want to listen to this man go on and on and on. He hated the sound of the man's voice and hated even more how the man tended to talk down to him. Besides which, Ed had a shower to take eventually, couldn't this have happened up afterwards?

"Where's your father?"

Raising his right eyebrow, surprised by the lack of conversation Dietrich was holding with him, Ed glanced down the hall towards his father's study, "I dunno where the heck he is. Hang on."

At that, Ed let the receiver drop from his fingertips and swing wilding off the table as he marched into his living room and through a corner door into his father's study. He checked left, right, up and down; even went so far as to look behind the door. Ed stood silent in the study, casting his gaze around the room as if he expected someone to jump out and surprise him; but the room was simply a void. Frowning in confusion, Ed made his way to the patio door and peeked out into the yard, only to be greeted by the chirping birds and colour-drained fall leaves.

"Huh?" Ed pulled the door shut and looked back into the house with a wide-eyed and perplexed expression. Running past the phone, Edward poked into the empty kitchen before running back upstairs to pry into his father's empty bedroom.

Making his way slowly back downstairs, Ed eyed the entranceway to finally receive some answer to the puzzling question; his father's shoes missing. Scooping up the telephone to his ear, Ed did his best to hide the confused tone from his voice, "I think he went out…" concerning factor was: his father normally didn't go out on Sundays.

"Dammit all! When he gets home, tell him he must call me immediately! Understood?"

Holding the receiver out in front of his face, Ed's expression dropped; unimpressed by the order, "Yeah, okay, I'll do that."

"Good boy! Talk to you later," and the man hung up.

Edward's eyebrow twitched as he dropped the receiver back down onto the handles. Stuffing his hands into his pant's pocket, he turned to return to the second floor. Before Ed had been given a chance to climb three steps, the phone rang again. Storming his way back, Ed grabbed it before the fourth ring.

"Hello?" he said flatly.

"Good afternoon."

"… Good afternoon…"

"Is Professor Hohenheim home?" the male voice on the other end asked.

Rolling his eyes once more, Ed's monotone voice continued to drone on, "No, he's not. I think he went out, can I ask who's calling?"

"This is Friedrich Krohn, I need to get in touch with him as soon as possible. Could you please have him call me when he gets home?"

Unentertained by the desperate hint the man carried in his voice, Ed simply shrugged, "Okay, I'll do that."

The conversation ended at that, and once again the receiver fell from Ed's fingertips. Returning to his mission of getting up the stairs, Ed hadn't even reached the base of the stairs before the phone rang again. His eyebrow twitched as he did an abrupt about face back to the phone.

"… Hello?"

"Edward!"

Ed's head dropped forward, the receiver glued to his ear; this voice he did recognize, "Are you looking for my father, Professor Haushofer?"

"Yes I am! Can you put him on the line?"

"He's not home," Ed tried to put a feign of interest into his speech, he didn't detest Professor Haushofer as much as everyone else calling so far.

"That's no good. Can you get him to-"

"Call you the moment he gets home," Ed scratched his head feverishly in frustration, "I will do that."

"Thank you so much!"

Once again, another brief conversation ended. With slow and careful precision, Ed took the receiver in both his hands and placed it firmly down to disconnect the call.

And the phone rang once more.

Snatching it up once more with Neanderthal like care, Ed slammed the receiver to his ear, "Hello?"

"Edward, it's Rudolf."

The back of Ed's gloved mechanical hand rubbed over his right eye, "Hey…"

"Are you feeling better today?"

"I'm developing a headache right now," Ed rolled his gaze around the hall, wishing he didn't have to hold this conversation, "did you need anything?"

"Well, I hope you feel better soon. Is your father around?"

The little string of secretarial obedience snapped as Ed's grip on the phone turned his knuckles white, "Why the hell is everyone suddenly calling for him? Is something wrong?"

"Oh no no!" Hess's voice quickly dismissed Edward's question, "It's just some internal matters we need to discuss with him, and we need to do it right away. It's very important that I speak to him."

Giving a sigh, Ed shook his head, "He's not home. I'll tell him to call you when he gets in though."

Hess's voice sounded more desperate than any of the others, "Do you know where he is? I'll go pick him up."

"I don't know… sorry," Ed's displeasure fell away; there was something deeply concerning about Hess's determination to tack down his father.

"… Shit. Okay, please make sure he calls me the moment you see him."

"Sure thing."

Once again the conversation ended.

Folding his arms, Ed eyed the telephone with intense speculation at what was going on… and with general annoyance that he was playing secretary. Frowning, he tried to think of what sort of circumstances would cause an uproar on a Sunday. The majority of Thule meetings were held Thursdays or Fridays; which again struck Ed as odd since this world's day of religion seemed to be Sunday.

Then the phone rang; Ed screamed at it before picking it up.

"What?"

"… Is that how you answer my telephone?"

"… _You_…"

"Edward, can you check in the fridge and tell me what's left in the fruit drawer and also if there's any milk?"

"Where the hell are you?" Edward wailed on the phone, "hurry up and get home because I'm tired of being your damn secretary! I'm not going to answer this phone for you any more; it can ring and ring and ring for all I care. I have other, far more important things to do than to tell all your friends you're not home!"

"…" If the telephone receiver could have sweatdropped as Hohenheim had on the other end of the line, it would have.

"And you're the only one who drinks it, so you should know if we need milk; I'm not doing any errands for you! … A couple apples would be nice, maybe a pear… but get home before every person in your address book needs you to call them!" Ed threw the receiver down, plucked the cord out of the wall, and stomped upstairs amidst his childish tantrum.

Left standing at a payphone near one of Munich's outdoor markets, a bag of groceries tucked under his arm; Hohenheim slowly hung up the phone and backed out of the booth. His eyes wide and shoulders fallen in total confusion, Hohenheim examined the stall momentarily before turning back into the Munich market, "… Perhaps I'm destined to never understand."

* * *

"Sir, I am telling you, I cannot admit you."

Sitting on the middle of the outdoor staircase at what was once Central Military Headquarters, which now had become a combined structure of both military and government alike, Al watched the situation unfold over his shoulder.

"I can appreciate that if you were a family friend of Mrs. Mitchell's that she would have allowed you into those wings, but since she is no longer here you must go through the proper channels. Get in touch with the Prime Minister's office, get the proper documentation and clearance, and come back then. You will be arrested if you don't comply," the security officer stood his ground as he, and two accompanying guards, attempted to escort out the challenging, firmly built man and his nimble looking companion.

"Lyra and Aisa told us there would be no hassle! Why don't you be the one who picks up the phone and calls that bitch to get our clearance?" the smaller of the two men retorted.

Al's eyes flickered with curiosity.

Holding a steadfast gaze, the officer once again refused the man who's subsequent verbal shot was stopped by the larger man, who carried a far more ominous presence than the little one's bite, "We will get this required clearance, and when we return, we will expect an apology from your office. Let's go."

With that, the man had ended their engagement, much to the obvious relief of the security remaining at the top of the staircase.

Al turned to face forward, not wanting either man to be aware that he had been watching their escapade with the authorities. Placing his hands on his knees, Al waited as the men walked by; a shiver ran up his spine when one of them stopped after having taken only three steps past him. Glancing up, Al found himself swept into the cold, drilling eyes embedded into the suntanned skin of this powerful man's presence. The deeper Al fell into his gaze, the more it withered him up in submission. The feeling was more than intimidation; he knew this face from somewhere and the impression left in his memory was not a positive sensation.

"Hey!" the other companion called back, having already descended the stairs and trekked a path along the sidewalk, "you were the one who said we were leaving."

Turning sharply away from the young Elric at the prompt, Al caught the sunlight's reflection off of the man's two golden earrings; something so startling it brought the boy to his feet. Not being given enough time to sort the rushing thoughts, Al jumped at a hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

Al turned his widened eyes to the head of security who'd stood in the men's path moments before.

"You're Alphonse correct? Mr. Mitchell was supposed to come greet you, but we insisted he stay in his office with those two trolling around. We'll take you to see him."

Al apologized for the inconvenience he was causing for them before following the man into the building. It was odd, Al thought, how absolute the division within the building was between government and military. He'd been made aware that one half of the building was still devoted to the military, while the other for parliament; yet as he followed his escort down the halls echoing with adult chatter, he did not encounter a single military official.

"Alphonse!"

Both Al and the security escort turned as the voice echoed off the walls.

"Sir, we asked you to remain-"

Mr. Mitchell waved a dismissive hand at his security chief; moving quickly to catch up with the pair, "I know you did, but I had to pick up a relay that came in."

Flicking his hair from his forehead, Al watched curiously; there was a hint of distress around the Prime Minister. Al slowly picked up how hard the man was forcing himself to remain composed.

"I'll look after Alphonse for a bit, but would you run a message to my Deputy Minister?" Al did not feel comfortable with Mitchell's firm business tone; "tell him to see me in my office immediately."

Al's eyes followed the man as he took off down the hall at the Prime Minister's urging, loosing him beyond a crowd of people exiting a conference room.

"I'm terribly sorry about all that," Mr. Mitchell tried to put his best face on, "things have just gotten a little hectic."

"That's fine," Al smiled his sweetest, giving an untroubled expression for the man as they continued down the hallway, "I shouldn't really be interrupting you at work like this."

Mr. Mitchell shook his head, "It's no interruption, I'd rather have you as a guest than deal with some other issues that are cropping up," reaching for the handles of a large set of double doors, he held one open for Al as they entered into the man's office; once home to the Fuhrer, "but I'm curious as to what could be so important that we couldn't discuss it over the phone?"

The topic made Al nervous. Everything about where he was made him nervous. His eyes ventured around the room, obvious that it was in the process of being remodelled from it's previous state, "My friend Winry…"

"Oh yes…" Mr. Mitchell led Al across his office. Al found himself taken aback by the dishevelled appearance of the room, whatever he'd envisioned the country's leader to have for an office, this certainly wasn't it. It was obvious that the room was undergoing massive renovations from it's previous state; the flooring was partially torn up, the walls were being repainted, the lighting was being redone, and the room fixtures had either been replaced, covered by cloth, or simply removed leaving gaping spaces where items once existed. It was, by no means, elegant or pristine quarters for the leader of the country.

"…did she finally make it to the Hughes residence?"

Al avoided eye contact, since he did not want Mr. Mitchell reading the underlying concern he carried, "No, she didn't. Ms. Hughes called this morning and said she hadn't…" he found himself trailing off in thought, recalling their earlier conversation.

Sitting down in his desk chair, the current office centrepiece obviously the only thing left untouched by the construction, Mr. Mitchell narrowed his gaze, looking unto Al with an expression defining him as the wiser man, "I know you said that she enjoyed traveling, but if you're concerned, you only need to ask."

He fidgeted at the statement, "It's just, I'm worried she might cause you some problems."

Mr. Mitchell raised an eyebrow, unsure where Al intended on taking the conversation, "More problems than the one she could be causing now?"

"Possibly," Al turned his cautious eyes over to the elder man, his words suddenly rushing out, "I'm just worried that maybe she had troubles with Central's law enforcement. If she got herself into trouble, and then people realized that because of me you were looking after some sort of fug..it…ive…" his voice trailed off; head tilting as his eyes grew skeptical. Suddenly, Al had preoccupied himself with the confusion surrounding Mr. Mitchell's sudden laughter.

"Oh dear, young Alphonse," the Prime Minister rose from his seat, "you're priorities are mixed up."

Al's eyes widened at the unseen truth behind the statement.

Stepping around his desk, Mr. Mitchell crouched down before Al, placing his hands upon the boy's shoulders; he smiled, "Wouldn't you think that I would have looked into Miss. Rockbell before letting a mysterious young lady stay at my home?"

"Well…"

"If the Military office of that Brigadier General wants to question Miss. Rockbell over what she may have seen in some petty robbery, so be it. They can waste their time on sad little incidents for all I care, but it is not something you need to concern yourself with."

Al's concern drained from his face, a profound sense of uncertainty replacing it, "… that was it…?"

Giving Al a firm pat on the shoulder, Mr. Mitchell rose tall once again, "It's not like I kept it a secret that she was staying with me, if they'd wanted to interview her, they could have come at any time."

Casting his gaze around the room as he slipped into thought, Al tried to remember if Winry had in fact said 'arrest warrant' or not, "… Oh." In addition to the uncoordinated statements between what Winry had shared and what Mr. Mitchell was divulging, another fact pestered Al; 'that Brigadier General' had known the entire time he had been together with Winry at the Mitchell residence.

Folding his arms over, Mr. Mitchell gave a sympathetic smile down for Al, "Now, do you want me to-"

"Sir!" the door flung open with the sudden appearance of the Prime Minister's Deputy.

The personality change was like night and day, Mr. Mitchell could change instantly from his compassionate tone to a strict and unwavering sternness, "What took you so long?"

Standing in the doorway, breathing heavily as if the man had run from one end of the compound to another, the man shook his head, "I apologize, but I got the message from General Hakuro the same time as your messenger found me."

"I need you to gather all my cabinet ministers-"

"I already did, that's what kept me. I sent out a wire, everyone should be gathering in chambers as we speak. I asked General Hakuro to join us."

"Good," in the moment it took for Mitchell to shift his gaze from his Deputy back to the distant expression of young Alphonse, he had dropped the harsh business tone from his voice, "Alphonse, I have some affairs to deal with. I don't know how long it will take, but did you want to find something to do in here? Or perhaps get a bite to eat in the cafeteria? Or if you wanted to go home…?"

Al couldn't go 'home', not yet, "Could I go to the cafeteria?" though he looked up at Mr. Mitchell, Al made no eye contact, "I haven't eaten yet."

"Okay," once again, Mr. Mitchell's hand came to rest on Al's shoulder, "if I take too long and you want to go, all you need to do is ask my receptionist and she'll get a driver to take you home."

A sudden thought struck Al; he spoke up quickly, "Is your receptionist's name Aisa?"

Pausing at the sudden question, Mr. Mitchell once again found himself laughing at something the young Elric had said, "God forbid there be two women in the world named Aisa," escorting Al out of his office, a frown fell onto the man's face, "but no, that's not her name, why do you ask?"

Glancing between the Deputy and Prime Minister, Al turned over his shoulder as he thought about the two men he'd watched outside, "The men causing a commotion earlier, they wanted to speak with you and mentioned that name."

Mitchell and his Deputy Minister exchanged a pair of puzzled glances as the Deputy spoke up, "Why would they bring her up? Aisa hasn't even been around the office since she brought Diana by the week Lyra passed away."

Receiving a few welcomed answers he had not planned on obtaining today, Al's eyes narrowed in thought once more before he finally cast a smiling face up at Mr. Mitchell, "I might have misheard; it didn't make sense that they'd be asking for someone who doesn't work in your office anyways."

Both men turned their puzzled gaze unto Alphonse who promptly excused himself from the topic of conversation, "Which way is the cafeteria?"

* * *

"Edward?" the sweet sounding voice whispered, "Edward… wake up for a minute."

Ed's eye cracked open, initially he thought his left eye couldn't see because his face was imbedded into the couch cushion; he soon came to remember there was a patch on his eye, "… What?" his groggy voice murmured.

"When was it you last saw that little miss Brigitte?"

"Tilly?" Ed pushed himself to his elbows, trying to rub the sleep from his eye, "what time is it?"

"Edward it's really important, you said that you saw her a few days ago. Was that Friday or Saturday?" Tilly kept her voice low; glancing back over her shoulder, "please tell me it was Saturday."

His left hand brushing his hair from his face; Ed glanced around the room, slowly coming to remember where he'd spent the night, "no, it was Friday," he rubbed his eyes, "Dad came home from school and started poking through my things, and I think Brigitte was in her uniform, why?"

"When I took her shopping and earlier in the week I left my number with the school. They tried to call last night when we were out, but got through this morning; she hasn't been at the school since a headcount was done Friday night," she sat down next to Ed on the couch as he straightened himself up, "did she tell you if she was going to run off somewhere?"

Ed shook his head, "It got late so I drove her back for the headcount or the nuns would strap her. Doesn't make sense that she'd run off if she was concerned about that."

Tilly sighed, clasping her hands over her mouth, "I hope she's okay."

Smirking at the comment, Ed flopped onto his stomach, burring his face in a cushion, "I'm sure she's fine, the girl's omnipresent. She's probably creating a nuisance of herself somewhere."

Glaring over to Ed, Tilly grabbed a pillow from the other end of her couch and threw it at his head, "There's a lot of nasty things you can do to a girl, you idiot. Those streets are not safe."

"I'm sore enough," Ed burrowed his head under the pillow he'd been hit with, "could I have things to worry about when I'm not feeling like you hit me with the shovel."

"Serves you right," she stood up sharply; latching two fingers through the back belt loops of his pants, Tilly pulled Ed to the floor with a thud, "hurry up and take a shower, my house smells like a lounge. I left your change of clothes in your bag by the door."

With his hand at his forehead, Ed sat up on the carpet, "That's your fault too."

"And look at me try and remedy that! I made Hermann take a shower already… granted I think he went back to sleep after… but still, if you don't hurry up and take a shower I'll wash you myself. Trust me, I have no problem with naked men."

Edward promptly stood up.

Clasping her hands in front of herself, Tilly swayed out of the room, "You're so cooperative Edward, thank you."

Doing as he'd been told, Ed snatched up the bag he'd brought over the day before and took the shower he'd been ordered to have. The shower ended up being a half conscious effort on Ed's part, spending more time with his tired cheek pressed into the tile to remain standing under the running water than anything else. The least amount of credit he could give the woman was that the shower did eventually wake him up; though he never fully recognized how long he was in there. Finally towelling off and zipping his trousers up, Ed combed back is wet hair into the ponytail. Making his way back downstairs as he buttoned his shirt, Ed blinked, eyeing Oberth standing at the door; jacket on, keys in hand.

"I thought you were asleep?"

"I have a wife who doesn't believe in the art of sleeping in," Oberth rolled his eyes, "even if I have the day off," he rose his voice loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.

"I love you too!" was all that came from beyond the door.

Oberth wrinkled his face in displeasure before turning his tired eyes over to Ed, "I'm suppose to drive you to the university, apparently."

Dropping his bag down, Ed slipped on his coat; all the while eyeing Oberth with a questionable gaze, "Why? It may be a long walk, but it's an easy one. I've done it before."

The kitchen door flung open as Tilly poked her head into the room, "Because there's a lot of nasty things you can do to a boy too, you idiot. Those streets are not safe," standing square in the door frame, her foot propping the door open, Tilly pitched two muffins across the room; both caught by her husband, "and have something to eat, men seem to forget to eat in the morning. It's not healthy."

Extending a bran muffin to his companion, Oberth's dead expression met with Edward's perturbed one, "Please, let me drive you."

With no further protest, Ed promptly snatched up his belongings and vacated the house; closely followed by Oberth.

The twenty-minute car ride was a silent one; both were tired. The night before Oberth's wife had insisted they go to a private club that she and her friends frequented after they'd already attended the live theatre. Oberth himself had provided much of the fine wine that night; a luxury he enjoyed thanks to a friend's vineyard. They'd lasted until nearly three in the morning when it was Tilly who gave out first; passing out at the table, having proudly out drank everyone there. Neither one of them understood why she was so perky before noon. Edward was thankful that this time he remembered how he got from point B back to point A.

He'd offered Oberth a chance to come into his wing of the school and enjoy the coffee, but he insisted on getting the errands done before his wife chose to deny him dinner. Ed left it at that, and marched his tired way into the university. He was reminded of how much he hated all the flights of stairs to the third floor; they seemed to go on forever, especially when he dragged his feet. The hallway was just as long, and his father just had to have an office at the end of the hall.

Finally reaching for the doorknob, Ed turned it, and walked right into the locked door.

His hand slapped over his face as a little vein popped onto his forehead, "Why's the door locked…" reaching into his pocket, Ed ripped out his keys and stuffed one into the doorknob to force the door open, "why did you lock the-"

Ed blinked at the empty room, "Oh."

Dumping his jacket and bag into a chair, Ed decided his father's vacant chair was far more comfortable looking than his was. Putting his chin on the Professor's desk as he sat down, Ed buried his face in his arms with a sigh. The quiet room was nice; the serenity lasted only a few relaxing minutes.

Ed picked up his head and glanced around the clean desktop. Narrowing an eye, Ed straightened up in the chair. He glanced over to the day-calendar that still had last Friday's date on it; he pulled off the pages until it came to Monday. Without hesitation, Ed's hand swept from the calendar to the telephone; tucking the earpiece between his ear and shoulder, he dialled reception and waited for someone to pick up.

"Good Morning, Sciences Division, Nancy speaking, how can I relay your call?"

"Nancy, it's Edward Elric from third floor sciences," he tapped a metal finger on the polished desktop, "did Professor Hohenheim come in this morning?"

"Good morning, Mr. Elric!" the perky girl's voice replied, "and I haven't seen the Professor in at all today. Usually he's in by seven thirty, coffee at ten; unless I missed him, he didn't pass by me. Maybe check with the Dean, he might have called in?"

Slouching back in the seat, Ed continued to tap his finger on the desk, "Thanks, Nancy." Dropping the receiver down, and promptly picking it back up again, Edward carried a disconcerted expression as he dialed home before anywhere else.

* * *

It was a welcome distraction; the phone call was, not the topic, which gave the Brigadier General an excuse to leave his house. Nothing about the topic was welcoming, inviting, or positive for that matter. He added it to the mounting pile of things he could not answer.

What in the world could have possessed the Drachma rebels to lay a strike down upon the barely rebuilt Ishibal settlement?

Mustang could not answer that.

Regardless of his immediate injuries after his unspoken battle with the former Fuhrer, the dismantling and reconstruction of the Ishibal policy had his fingerprints all over it. It was infuriating; why then was his department being shut out of these developments? Why did Major. Hawkeye and Lt. Havoc receive notice of the developments from a second hand source? Why did no one in a higher authority contact him?

Stopped at a red light, within sight of Central head quarters, Mustang's fist slammed into the rim of the steering wheel; inadvertently causing the horn to sound. It would be the only display of frustration he planned to give.

Given a few minutes, Mustang lurched his car to a halt within the parking lot. He used the wretched cane once again; though the inflammation in his knee was not quite as annoying as the situations he found himself wishing he could deal with.

The bitter man hobbled his way into the building through the closest entrance he could find, which was the entrance he'd wanted. As best he could, Mustang tore a strip down the hallway; giving little regard to the people he passed along the way. There was an office he was going to crash first, and with a firm palm of his hand, he forced the door open.

It was Lt. Ross and Sergeant Broche who looked up from their work in surprise at the Brig. General's intrusion.

"Lt. Colonel Armstrong is…?" Mustang's voice ripped through everything within the room.

Exchanging a nervous glance, it was only Lt. Ross who returned her eyes to the intimidating look carried on Mustang's face, "Lt. Havoc invited him to your office. I think they—HEY!" she stood up abruptly from her chair, following the man out of the office after he slammed the door behind himself.

"Sir!" her voice called out down the hall, moving much faster than the hindered Brig. General could.

"Why wasn't I contacted immediately," Roy barked in response to her call, "if it had just been myself left out, this would not be an issue. But my entire office?" his voice shot out, never once turning back to look at her, "there is no reason for that."

Maria shook her fallen hair from her face as she slowed to match the man's pace, "Sir, of all people, you should know how it works; it wasn't by our choice. Information was disclosed to divisions based on decisions made by higher authorities."

"Who's authority?" Mustang's bitterness echoed in the stairwell as he began the assent to his office's floor.

Lt. Ross followed his lead, her eyes closely watching the man as he fought to keep the discomfort of his leg from blatantly showing, "General Hakuro… Sir."

Mustang stopped in his tracks, his gaze turning harshly down to the Lieutenant; her jaw tightened in response to the angered look. He did not need to say anything, the displeasure in his eyes for the General had grown enough that no one needed to hear a word from the Brigadier General's mouth about him any longer.

Roy swung forward and returned to focusing on the climb he faced.

Gripping the handrail of the stairwell, Maria finally returned to tailing the man, "Sir, he may have received those orders from someone within the government."

"Lieutenant," Mustang did not wait for Ms. Ross to join him on the top step before addressing her once more, "I do know how the system works."

Frowning as the man tried to escape her company once again, Maria ran a stiff hand through her hair before continuing her chase down the hallway, "I had someone advise me to put more faith in the system," she lowered her voice to remain below the hum of vocal chatter within the hall.

"That was an ill-advised move. Faith is like respect and trust; it is something that should be developed and earned," Roy drew his words from a wise and buried soul that that had been punished a thousand times for a crime of blind faith, "your gut feeling… your instinct should be placed in higher regard. That is why Brigadier General Hughes touted you, is it not?"

"Sir," instinct told Lieutenant Maria Ross to stop.

The blunt voice and sudden absence of a matching set of footsteps grabbed Roy's attention, stopping him. The only good eye remaining glanced back to her; he carried a look of speculation as the Lieutenant moved slowly to join the man at his side.

"Instinct leads to faith and trust, they can work in tandem. You need a little bit of both in order to move forward with much success, don't you think?" her voice still held below the volume within the chatter.

"In a better society…" Roy's abrupt demeanour began to subside the longer Maria Ross went without responding to him; he eyed her waiting for a retort, yet she simply held her focus forwards. Finally the Brigadier General turned his attention ahead, only to be struck in the face by what it was capturing the lower officer's attention. His brow rose slowly with surprise and satisfaction.

"I will give you this, Lieutenant, it is easier to put faith into individuals than a collection of men."

With a smirk, the Brigadier General stepped forward down the hall, followed a step behind by the Lieutenant. Though the halls bustled with people, the most distinct noise was the echo of their feet as the pair marched.

As the footsteps of the military boots ground to a halt next to where he stood, Alphonse looked up to the two officers standing over him; towering a full head's height taller than himself. The three stood without a word to each one and other, Al's examining eyes drifting between the officers as he continued to stand outside the closed door of Roy Mustang's office.

"Sorry," Al finally took a step to square himself under the watchful eye of Mustang, "I asked one of the workers in the cafeteria to tell me where to find the office. I was going to knock, but I could hear voices coming from inside and I didn't know if I should interrupt or not."

"I don't think anyone in there would mind," Maria's firm military posture loosened as she spoke.

"Since…" Roy cast his fabricated melancholy expression to his sealed door, "since we are out here, and not interrupting what's going on within my office; rather than becoming an intrusion, I'd be interested in finding out what brought you up here."

Lt. Ross tossed a mused look Mustang's way.

The nervous downturn of Al's eyes caught both officers' immediate attention. Roy chose to remain silent, allowing the myriad of emotions within his steadfast gaze to be his response if Alphonse ever chose to look back up at him again.

Al granted the man his wish. Stiffening his posture, he turned the strong and inherited Elric gaze back to the imposing man's presence, "I wanted to know if you knew anything about what happened to Winry last night?"

The abstract question broke Mustang's composure, "Huh?"

"… 'Happened to Winry'?" Lt. Ross's surprised reaction did not quite match the curve ball that had caught her superior off guard; the words were not what either of them had been expecting.

Al clenched his fists; he knew instantly by their reactions they knew nothing. Though he had never entertained suspicion of them, life could have been made simpler if they had some involvement. His eyes fell away, "Winry was supposed to stay with Ms. Hughes last night but she disappeared. Someone saw her tool case and shoes get thrown from a military vehicle…"

"… What…?" Roy's composure returned as quickly as he could have set the hall ablaze.

"A shop owner gave the items to Ms. Hughes. She called me this morning and told me about," Al gave a discouraged shrug of his shoulders, "I'd sort of hoped that… maybe you knew something, since Mr. Mitchell said that you knew where she'd been staying."

Releasing his balance from the reassurance of the cane he unwillingly relied upon, Mustang took the object firmly in his hand and handed it sharply over to a startled Lieutenant Ross, "Hold this."

Firmly grabbing Alphonse's wrist in his left hand, Mustang hauled the surprised and speechless boy into his office; barging into the room without so much as an introductory knock.

Pulling his startled self away from Mustang's grasp, Al discovered he stood at centre stage in the office, only two steps behind the Brigadier General. His line of sight slowly canvassed the room; of all the men and women on their feet, Al recognized only half of the widened eyes looking back at him, recognizing them from weeks before in the hospital. Nothing else within the room registered for Al as he tried to organize the voids that existed for each individual; trying to absorb faces, expressions, heights...

Today, Al found himself an underlying confidence within this room of unfamiliarity. He knew he was going to change the way things were.

"Gentlemen," Roy's voice barked out, offering up his familiar commander's tone to his most trusted officers, "I need officers for a missing person's detail," Mustang's direction trailed from his officers down to young Alphonse, "Miss. Winry Rockbell has gone missing."

**

* * *

****To Be Continued...**

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* * *

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**Author's Notes  
**  
X3;; poor Hohenheim… Ed's a basket case. Though Ed flipped out over London with a bit more under his skin than you know right now.

No, Aisa is not a Japanese name. It just looks Japanese, but it's been taken from another language source.

I've realized I put both Roy's and Hoho's office on the third floor. I have no reason for this, other than subliminal messaging from my Japanese sensei, where anything of ANY importance always seems to be on that damned third floor -.-; (san-kai!)

This chapter should be named "Telephone" or something…

**Previous Chapter Feedback**

Still lots of feedback luv!

Edit: I had a significant amount of feedback that I answered (this was prior to the feedback feature FFN added ages ago). The responses to the reviews given are years old, so I've chosen to archive these at LJ.

http:/ yuuki(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)109396(dot)html

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed!


	12. From Beyond the Looking Glass

**He Who Searches For Himself**

* * *

_11/30/1915 _

_Dear Sheska,_

_How's everything been over in Central since we chatted on the phone the other week? I'm down in Rush Valley again, so feel free to send a letter or a phone call this way._

_First, I did get your package. Thank you for shopping for me, I really don't think I should be seen poking around Central any time soon. I've had some spare time since Wrath disappeared, so if you still want me to put together an 'oven' for you, let me know. Roze says that I should patent and sell my style of 'oven'; I'm definitely going to look into the idea. I can just imagine the stuff I could buy with the profits I'd make. I'll have such a good thing going for me and not even be 18!_

_Anyways, Al's been getting on really well. You need to come and see him! He's become something like a big brother to Roze's baby; I think he enjoys that role way too much. He's going to make such a wonderful dad someday; I can't wait to see him like that. The thought of watching Al grow up is kind of exciting. Izumi's still over protective of him whenever she stays for a weekend though; Al hasn't figured out how to react to her behaving like that._

_It's gotten sort of uneasy to talk to him, but we're working through it; he seems really nervous when we talk. We have so little we can relate to each other, there's nothing he remembers that we can build a conversation on and the things he remembers I've forgotten most of. If he wasn't suddenly so much younger than me, I might have been able to talk with him more. I don't know how much the situation bothers him, some days I wonder if we even sound believable._

_Granny says we should stop burdening Al with stuff he doesn't remember; we'll start all over, move forward from there and see where life takes us. If he wants to know something, he'll ask. I think it's easier on Al like that, rather than us upsetting him with stories about things and people he's suppose to know and doesn't. He was fascinated by everything at first, but now it just seems to bother and upset him. Izumi said it's probably like rubbing salt on an open wound. The only thing he's done is brought up ideas of what happened to Ed; Granny and Izumi are really trying to discourage him from doing anything about it._

_Ed's still missing. When Roze told us what had happened we put it together with what Izumi had found and figured out what he'd done. Izumi continues to go off to look now and then; just in case, I suppose. For me, it's just easier to pretend he's not here. We told Al for a while that Ed was in Central, but we eventually had to tell him what happened. He was really upset with us; and he had every right to be. I think we lived in denial that Ed would go that far; and we didn't want to admit anything to Al since we didn't want to accept it ourselves. Admitting that Ed had died felt sort of like admitting Al wasn't human for all those years. If Al thought Ed was alive, things were somehow better._

_But really, things have been better lately. We got over the rough part and things are moving on._

_Anyways, Rush Valley is really nice right now with all the fall leaves, come out and see me sometime on a long weekend. I hear that the military is going through an overhaul, I can imagine that everyone is somewhat unsettled by the change in power and your job's gotten hectic. I hope the instability isn't causing too many problems for everyone. I've heard that the Ishibal Policy has begun to go through revisions. I think that's good, there's a couple of boys I'm hoping do really well._

_How's Mr. Mustang doing? You told me a bit on the phone about his injury, but I'm still interested in knowing how he's doing. I actually want to know how everyone's doing, so keep me up to date. You can be my eyes and ears. Send me a picture of Elysia once in a while too._

_Write me back!_

_Winry Rockbell_

**Chapter 63 - From Beyond the Looking Glass **

"Now Al," Sheska's hands fluttered in front of herself, "you have to remember that Winry wrote that letter last winter. You can understand how strange things were back then, right? And she told me things have gotten way better; we've had a couple more letter exchanges and chats on the phone. Please, please, please, don't take that thing out of context."

"That's fine," Al pushed his wooden chair away from the table as he stood up, "I know," he moved to Mustang's desk, and handed the letter back to Lieutenant Havoc, who'd managed to remain in Mustang's chair regardless of the man's presence. Al turned away from Havoc while he put the letter back into his chest pocket and then reached to answer the ringing phone.

Al's eyes scanned the room of men and women gathered, "So…" Al's face wrinkled slightly, "everyone's read that letter?"

There was a collective nod among the silent gathering within the room.

"Oh," Al scratched his cheek lightly as he moved to sit back down; positioned at Mustang's right and Sheska's left.

The silence was uneasy. Al could only guess at the multitude of questions running through everyone's mind; the moment he'd entered the room all eyes were on him. Mustang had been gracious enough to introduce the members within the room: Lt. Colonel Armstrong, Major Hawkeye, First Lieutenant Havoc, Second Lt. Breda, Sgt. Major Fury, Warrant Officer Falman. Along with himself and Second Lt. Ross, Sheska had come to join the gathering at Mustang's incontestable demand.

"Alphonse Elric," came Armstrong's powerful voice, "young Miss. Winry mentioned in her letter about your memory. How far back does it take you?"

Al shifted in his seat as he mulled over the question, "Um, I don't remember anything after we tried to bring our Mom back…"

It was only Roy, Riza and Sheska who picked up the true cause behind the growing looks of confusion and shock that left Al squirming in his seat over a fact Roy had never disclosed.

"…a little over six years ago."

"That was the spring before the boys arrived in Central," Roy's voice had come up quickly in addition to the statement, "I believe you were left in the same physical condition as back then as well."

Al slowly nodded at the statement.

Everyone took the underlying cue Mustang had given and wiped all reaction from their eyes. A collective realization fell upon the room: the aforementioned human transmutation was something the Brigadier General had known long before this young Elric had ever returned Central.

Havoc disconnected his phone call and glanced over to Mustang, "She's on her way up, Sir."

Glancing into the unspoken trail of knowledge shared between Havoc and Mustang, Al spoke up, "More people are coming?"

Folding his arms, Mustang leaned back in his seat, "Mrs. Hughes."

The name drew a distraught sigh from Al, "She was really upset last night when Winry disappeared."

Raising an eyebrow in distant thought, Roy's voice was solemn, "That's the parent in her."

"Alphonse," Hawkeye finally broke into the conversation, "you said that Winry's shoes and tool case were thrown from a military car?"

"Yeah," Al glanced over to the Major, the deep seriousness of her voice was in contrast to the cautious nature of all other questions given by the other officers, "Mrs. Hughes found them in a shop and on the street."

Her brow tightening, Hawkeye folded her arms across her chest, "Unless the vehicle was stolen, assuming that the car's occupants were officers, why discard those items?"

Sheska glanced beyond Al and Roy to the Major, "Winry probably tried to use them to hit whomever was in the car with her. That case would leave a hole in someone's skull."

"Shoes too?" Riza added flatly.

"Depends on how hard she hit'em."

"Then there should be a broken window," beyond the look Mustang carried, Havoc carried the most daunting expression within the gathering.

Al sat up in his seat, turning his attention over to the Lieutenant, "There was a broken window; the shop owner had his window broken."

"That's not what I meant," Havoc shook his head, leaning forward, "I meant, a broken car window. Was there glass in the street?"

Wrinkling his face, Al remained silent, trying to recall if Mrs. Hughes had specified.

"If you're trying to subdue your occupant…" Havoc verbally mulled over his train of thought, "where do you find the time to unroll the window and toss belongings from the car? Something like that would be the least of your concerns. Subsequently, if it is Winry throwing these items at her attackers, the window wouldn't be unrolled and her tool case would have broken the glass on the way out."

"If the attackers are military officers, they should be trained well enough that it should be common sense not to discard evidence so carelessly," Breda added, his frown matching the looks many of the officers had begun to wear, "Especially those sorts of identifiable items."

"Unless they were deliberately discarded in plain sight," Roy's posture stiffened at the direction the thought progression was traveling, "Then, we have either a stolen military vehicle out there, a vehicle with a broken window, or…"

Attention in the room turned over to the door as a gentle knock landed on the wood. The most amusing thing about the noise at the door was the young voice of Elysia that came with it.

Mustang glanced to the sounds, "Come in."

* * *

It was day two. This one was far more awkward than the previous. The day before, Edward's father had missed every appointment, every meal, every radio program; every habitual engagement the man went through in his daily routine. Edward developed a theory in London that he could time his pocket watch by some of the things his father did. For a second night in a row he had not even shown up to mess the sheets on his bed, nor had he been there in the morning when Edward woke up once more.

Sitting on his father's desk unable to concentrate on the mind-numbing task of sorting through a diminishing stack of paperwork, Ed had spent the mid-day on the phone. He returned the favour his father's friends had bestowed upon him over the weekend.

And so Edward called, and called, and called. Many numbers simply came with no answer, while other calls were only answered by wives and children declaring that their husbands and father's were not home or out of town.

As it was with every one of them…

Every one of them that had anything to do with this Thule Society, that is.

Anyone else not involved in this societal cult simply had no idea where his father had gotten to; just as devoid of knowledge and awareness as Edward found himself wading through. He would not have pursued the issue with much vigor if it had not been for the absence of all his father's Thule contacts, and only them.

Finally Edward said 'Screw it!' to the schoolwork and left the university swelling with his discontent.

He drove the car his father had left behind into the heart of the city, glaring off into space. Ed eventually gave up on the joy ride; leaving the vehicle in a lot, he adorned his coat and took a trip with the fall breeze through the open market. The groceries his father had gone shopping for days ago did not end up in the house. He eventually ventured out to the Oberth's to return some papers, but declined the invitation to stay for dinner. The sun was setting earlier than previous days and had left nothing but fading twilight as well as a sore leg by the time he had returned to the car.

Taking himself back home, Ed stood silent at his front door beneath the darkened porch light, bags dropped at his feet. The door was not closed. He clearly remembered locking the door because he had to run back inside to get his keys; this was not his carelessness. A weak light filtered out from beyond the kitchen and study windows. He knew better, if his father were home and Edward was not, the porch light would be on. Ed took his shoes off at the doorstep, and left them there.

He was glad the front door didn't creak as he pushed it open into the silent house, the only source of light coming from within the living room down the hall. His father's shoes were not on the mat, nor was his coat in the open closet. Ed's hand slipped into his jacket pocket as he moved his socked feet silently along the floor. Cupping his hand around his keys to keep them silent, he flipped out a small key from the bundle in his pocket and stepped up to the table the phone sat upon. His eyes focused down the hall, listening intently for any sounds as he opened up the drawer beneath the tabletop and slowly produced the handgun from within.

The thud he heard come from down the hall added caution to the approach Ed made. The closer he came, the quicker he realized that the sounds of movement were not emanating from the living room, but from his father's attached study.

Edward held to the wall as he stalked his way towards the wide open door leading into the study. Leaning against the wall, he could make out clearly that someone was going through the desk drawers with little care. Scowling, he adjusted the gun within his left fingers and took a deep breath.

"Hold it!" Ed squared off in the doorframe, his jacket flaring out around himself as he held his left arm firmly out in front of himself, a cross expression on his face.

"Good lord!" Hess' arms shot up and away from anything he was touching.

"What are you doing…?" Ed's expression lifted in surprise.

"Put that down!" Hess chirped back at him.

Ed's armed hand swung down at his side, "What do you think you're doing in here? How did you get in my house?"

"Your dad gave me his keys," as if nothing had just happened, Hess returned to rummaging through the desk once again.

Edward narrowed an eye somewhat annoyed, "And why are you here and he's not?"

"He asked me to pick up a few things for him," Hess' hand came down upon a stack of papers upon Hohenheim's desk.

Glancing to the side in confusion, Ed began to scratch his cheek, "And he had to send you to do that? Where's he been anyways?"

"He said he didn't want to leave, he didn't trust Max enough to – ah! There it is!" Hess added another set of papers to the pile.

"So… where is he?"

Hess momentarily gave his attention to Edward, "Hohenheim said you probably weren't going to be worried about him."

"I'm not worried about him; he's a big man, he can take care of himself. I am just curious why he'd take off and why every other Thule member seems to be missing as well. It looks suspicious," Ed's gaze narrowed back at Hess' mused look.

"Lets see," Hess tapped his chin as he ran his wording through his mind, "some internal matters came up, we required everyone to join us at the cathedral, and we've been there debating our internal matters ever since. Nothing too serious. Everyone took a few hours later in the afternoon today to go home before we reconvene for the night, Hohenheim said he wanted to stick around but asked me to get some things for him."

Raising an eyebrow, Ed decided to test how far he could get into the waters, "What sort of internal matters?"

"Well now," Hess scanned over the spines of the books on one of the shelves along the wall, "I'd like to tell you, but you're not internal. Sorry Edward."

Seems he wasn't going to get too far. Edward shrugged at the answer and turned out of the room, "Whatever."

"Oh hey! These two are side by side, great!"

Ed glanced over his shoulder at the sound of Hess' voice as he wandered to put the firearm away, "Let me know when you're done pillaging my house, okay?"

"Done right now, actually," Hess called back as he stuffed the two books and papers into his bag to follow in Edward's wake out of the study.

"Good," he muttered under his breath while locking the drawer. He turned his attention to Hess as the man swiftly made his way past Edward.

"Didn't mean to startle you so much Edward," Hess said as he turned back in the front door, "when I get a chance, we'll get some people together for drinks, okay?"

Ed waved his hand dismissively, "Make sure you shut the door on your way out."

The sentence had barely finished before the door swung shut in Hess' rushed exit. Ed shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling generally annoyed, and marched back towards the study, "He didn't even take off his shoes."

At his own words, Ed did not loose a stride as he spun on his heels to retrieve his shoes and bags of groceries. Slipping back through the house, he left his baggage in the hall and moved into the doorway of the study once again. Ed looked around unimpressed at the minor mess Hess had not bothered to clean. Holding a firm scowl, he never made it far enough into the room to deal with the open boxes and displaced clutter. Ed stared out from the corner of his eye at the space left by the two missing books Hess had taken.

"Why these…?" he turned to face the string of alchemy texts that had been picked from.

* * *

The collective emotions of the sweating faces and shaken heads at the Magic Flowers technique passed down through the Armstrong family for generations could not challenge the delighted squealing of young Elysia Hughes as she stood on her chair next to the towering Lt. Colonel Armstrong.

Swinging his massive arm around, bouquet in hand, Armstrong turned the flowers over to young Elysia, "For a beautiful young lady."

Roy rubbed his temple and Riza's narrowed eyes monitored the vein developing on his forehead.

Elysia's voice squealed as she gleefully took them into her arms, "Thank you, Sir!"

Obscuring if she felt any embarrassment or not, Ms. Hughes plucked her daughter off the seat and held the imp in her lap, "I think that's enough, Elysia."

"Mummy…!"

"We should let Mr. Armstrong help Mr. Mustang and Alphonse find Winry. It's important that we find her," Gracia's eyes shifted from her daughter to the Brigadier General, "glass in the street?"

Eyes glanced over to Havoc who filled the remaining empty seat at the table, "Not from the shop window, but in the middle of the street," the Lieutenant was finally able to add, "like from a broken car window."

Shaking her head, Gracia thought back to earlier in the day, "No, the streets were clean. The shop owner didn't mention anything either."

Armstrong folded his arms, wrinkling his shining forehead; "It is a bit much to expect the city to have cleaned up the street by the morning if there had not been an accident of some kind."

"Falman, Breda," Mustang's ensuing words had already been interpreted as the men rose from their seats, "see if this shop owner has anything more to offer us."

Pulling at her mother's fingers, Elysia finally slipped from her lap. Ducking under the table of curious onlookers as the two officers ducked out of the room, Elysia reappeared between Mustang's wary gaze and Al. She pulled her way onto Alphonse's lap.

"You have a bad face again today."

"Huh?" Al raised an eyebrow at the seriousness Elysia spoke with, "I'm just thinking about where we might find Winry, that's all."

"Thinking makes bad faces like that?" the little girl wrinkled her nose.

"Sometimes."

Elysia huffed, folding her arms as she turned in Al's lap to look up at him squarely, "Then don't think!"

Al gave a laugh at the sincerity behind her off-the-wall statement, "Well, I have to think. Its just lots of bad thoughts that make bad faces like that."

There those eyes were again, watching him. The feeling was far gentler than the piercing curiosity of an hour ago. He couldn't help but wonder what they thought of him.

"Hmm…" a proud grin suddenly grew across Elysia's face, "congratulations, congratulations, congratulations!"

Roy pushed out of his chair; Al glancing over as he did so, only to catch the subtle concern in Hawkeye's gaze as she watched the Brigadier General walk over to his desk.

Al looked back to Elysia, "… Congratulations?"

"Daddy told me that the more someone said 'congratulations' to you, the more good things will happen to you. Even Winry knows that!"

Al lifted his eyes from Elysia, looking across the table to Mrs. Hughes. Her gaze had softened, turning her eyes away in thought; a distant smile developing across her face as she leaned back in her seat. Al finally scanned the expressions upon the faces of the officers Elysia had sombered.

"Sgt. Major Fury," like a thunderclap, Mustang's voice broke the silence, "head downstairs and get vehicle information from the logs. See if anything matches up with last night's incidents. Lieutenant Ross, please return to your duties. Lt. Colonel, escort Alphonse, Mrs. Hughes and her daughter back to their vehicle. Mrs. Hughes, we'll keep you advised with what we turn up. I don't know if it would be appropriate for anyone in my office to relay information to Alphonse directly, so if you could remain in contact with him?"

Al's brow knit together at the sudden declaration of orders, "I'd actually been thinking about asking Mr. Mitchell if I could stay with Mrs. Hughes."

Roy's expression began to lift as Gracia stood up from the table, "I don't mind at all, we have a spare room and Elysia would have some more company."

The little girl's arms flung into the air, "Yay!"

"Perhaps time will have softened the Prime Minister's stance on Alphonse's observation," Roy said in thought before the stern tone returned to his demeanour, "Lieutenant Havoc, would you continue to warm my chair. Major, you're with me. Something should be done with our evidence before too much time elapses."

Alphonse's wary eyes followed Mustang as the man blew past where he sat, barely giving Major Hawkeye enough time to get to her feet and follow in stride. Like a gust of wind, the door blew shut behind the two as they abandoned the office.

"Sir?" Riza moved swiftly to catch up with her superior, "you left your–"

"It's not needed," Roy said harshly as he began his decent down the stairs without his cane.

Matching his hindered pace two steps behind, Riza withheld her disapproval of her superior's stubborn insistence that he could manage just fine in his current physical condition.

"Major," Mustang's poise never waned, "we'll re-evaluate Mrs. Curtis' case until something can be uncovered with Miss. Rockbell. Two missing people is excessive for that young Elric."

Riza's footsteps vanished. The sudden absence of her echo brought Mustang to a halt.

"You didn't ask…" her voice unsettled him; a long sigh escaped from his lips as Riza's footsteps began to echo from her own decent, "… about Edward."

"Miss. Rockbell and Mrs. Curtis are higher priorities," Roy's decent down the flights of stairs resumed, his jacket floating out behind from a weak updraft within the stairwell, "it seems FullMetal's given us a great deal of time to discuss his circumstances at a later date."

The echo of Hawkeye's footsteps began to move in time with Mustang's. The silence she left him with became a worse entity than the echo of any words could have been.

Roy's voice called back, wanting to step out from the looming cloud, "How many times did Elysia convey Maes' 'well wishings'?"

"Three," the officers took the last step from the stairwell.

"Very well then," moving down the final stretch of hall before the building exit, a formidable grin crossed Mustang's face, "let's see if we can't find three things to give that boy some answers."

"I'll guarantee one, Sir," Hawkeye did not even have to utter the words; there had come a point in time when the information had become crystal clear in the Brigadier General's mind, "whomever drove that vehicle is steering us astray."

* * *

"You performed… a transmutation?" Ed slit his eyes, grossly unimpressed by the tale, "a transmutation with that?" Ed's finger shot to the etched centrepiece of the Thule Society hall as his disgust rolled off his tongue.

The emphatic disbelief in his voice was disregarded by the man, "Dietrich bought me dinner that night, and the first words out of his mouth to your father when he arrived was 'I told you so!'. Hohenheim's been such a grouch ever since, he doesn't want to believe me."

"Mr. Amann, your story is ridiculous," Ed snorted, looking directly at the man who'd allowed him access to the Thule hall. He'd given himself a day to mull over Hess' words, behaviour, and anything he could connect into the situation. He had no reason to doubt Hess, however he could think of no reason Hohenheim would request knowledge from an alchemy book that should be in his head already. By the next evening Ed decided to venture out to the old part of the city where the Thule hall stood. Within the main church hall, Edward had found Max Amann sitting alone, his hands clasped as he prayed in thanks to whatever God he thought he should believe in. He came to learn quickly that Amann was the only one around during this evening hour; he could not bear to part with his 'gift'. Not caring enough to want to know why, Ed asked the two most pressing questions on his mind:

What was going on?  
When did the vandalism to the cathedral windows happen?

According to Amann, Ed was supposed to be in awe of the story he was told; the one about how he created life from within the confines of the defunct alchemy circle. Right. He wanted to be regarded as some sort of God. The longer Amann carried on with his tale, the quicker Edward discovered that the transmutation story was more desirable than anything the man added after the fact.

Straightening his jacket, Ed continued to shake his head as he walked the parameter path around the circle. He gave no response; he simply absorbed the fresh air leaking in from the shattered windows.

"Deitrich, Adolf and I were on the mark when we drafted that design," the pride danced about in his voice.

Looking down from the corner of his eye into the engraved cement, Edward's eyebrow rose as he knelt down, "Do you smoke, Mr. Amann?"

"I do, did you want one?"

Ed ran his pinky finger along the etching, picking at the grooves, "Do you smoke in here?"

Amann rolled his words out slowly, "Many do…"

Sitting back on his knees, Ed sniffed the pinky finger and cast his distrusting gaze up at Amann once again, "Do you know what this stuff is in these grooves, Mr. Amann?" the blank look on the man's face was sufficient, "this is magnesium powder."

"What's so special about that?"

Ed rolled his eyes muttering something about how any 'alchemist' should know what he's talking about, "You know… magnesium gets used in bombs, for fireworks and flashy things at carnivals. That match you use to light your cigarette could do pretty decent damage to the room."

Amann's nose curled up, obviously insulted by the statement, "Are you implying something, Mr. Elric?"

"Not really," Ed stood up, a half smile on his face, "just sharing some alchemy hints."

"I'll have you know there was not enough magnesium to fill a salt shaker," Amann folded his arms, his voice growing aggressive from Ed's visual amusement.

"So, you did have some around?"

"No, that trespassing little girl taking photographs had the magnesium."

"…What?"

"She was using it for her camera flash."

"She _what_…?" the startled tremor in Ed's voice had been unintentional.

"Some child with some fancy photography setup," the man's eyes narrowed as he watched Edward tense, "she broke in; she was an intruder. No one accesses this place without permission. Not only was she taking pictures of our most sacred location, but she vandalized the church property to get in, she lied when I questioned her about her actions, and… what right does any woman have coming in here? I shot the wretched thing where she stood; obviously her parents give no care for her. We can't allow a girl with such a disrespectful disposition growing up in our Germany, she had no idea where her place was."

The voice absorbed through Edward's skin, standing within the room numb as the remaining echo scattered around him, "I told her not to…" his voice too shallow to be heard.

Pointing up into the cathedral dome, the man's smirk widened, "barely moments after the girl collapsed…"

Edward's gaze could have killed.

"… every one of these sigil lines glowed such a powerful white no electrician could have matched the intensity. No magnesium powder could have come close. The energy began to electrify the poor thing; the current was so strong you could clearly make out every strand of conduction flowing within the chaos. I remember I could see how the current conducted through her veins; it lit up her teeth and fingernails, the whites of the girl's eyes were shining through her eyelids. The winds began to circulate as the current intensified and it began to deconstruct the girl before the explosion blew me from my feet. Those windows all shattered from the explosion; it was so powerful not a single shard of glass remained in the frame. So much of the tapestry has to be replaced."

Ed's good fist clenched so hard his knuckles whitened; he tightened his jaw, slowly making his approach with a darkening shadow growing over his face, "You… disgusting…"

Max Amann read Edward's intentions like an open book, taking a defiant position against his advance, "Oh Mister righteous defender of the dignity of life, grow up for me please. I'm tired of listening to you dispute, challenge and moralize the things I've done these last few days. Not only did I perform a transmutation, I performed a human transmutation!"

"You… murdered that girl!"

"I performed a human transmutation on that girl. I created a Goddess from that dead body, she came back to life after I stole her from heaven."

"Like hell you did! You shot that girl, for WHAT reason? Cause she invaded your little party?" his enraged voice tore out to fill the room; yet, it had been the gun holster he'd spotted on the man earlier that kept Edward from charging forward fist first.

Ed threw the man's attention the circle within the room, "Alchemy is just another code name for magic here; it has no power. That circle is an eyesore and you are still standing. Do you have any idea how a human transmutation works? Where's your sacrifice, your personal sacrifice?"

The darkened shadows upon Amann's face lit the whites of his eyes with rancour at Ed's ranting. He did not respond to the provocations.

Ed finally scoffed at the man's silence, "This is a sacred place for you and your friends; these people's thinking is so backwards of course they'd buy a Goddess story from a waste of space like you. How dare you claim your society to be some superior echelon of humanity when you unload your gun on a child."

"Watch your tongue, boy, it's liable to be cut out," the man's eyebrow twitched under the shadows of the hall, "your father has seen my Goddess; I cannot say that any one man's profoundly overwhelmed expression has ever given me such pleasure."

"Shut the hell up."

"I want to capture that same look in your eyes," the man turned, reaching for a door handle along the parameter of the hall, "a boy as smart as you believe you are should know better than to turn his back on this opportunity."

Ed read into the underlying threat within the statement, casting his bitterly curled gaze towards the now smirking man.

* * *

"Alphonse?" Gracia's soft voice drew his attention, "are you okay? You haven't said a word the whole car ride."

Al shrugged lightly, tilting his head back against the headrest, "Today was weird, I was thinking about it."

"What was so weird about it?"

Frowning in thought, Al twisted his face as he tried to form an explanation, "I don't know, maybe it wasn't what I expected. There were a lot of people in the room and no one really asked too many questions; they just sort of… stared. It was awkward."

Surprising Al, Gracia started to giggle, "I think everyone's just trying to get use to your blonde hair and grey eyes. I'm sure once everyone gets comfortable with this, you'll be able to ask some of the questions you have of them, and they can ask you things in return. Equivalent exchange, correct?"

Al's sheepish grin swept across him, "I suppose that's true. It did take a while to get comfortable around people in Rizembool too. At least we did some talking before you arrived."

Taking a moment to glance over her shoulder to make sure her daughter was still wrapped up in the colouring book, Gracia pulled her attention back to Alphonse, "What did you talk about?"

"Well…" Al folded his arms, "I guess Mr. Mustang and Ms. Hawkeye have been trying to find Sensei even without me asking. He said that the police do have jurisdiction, but he was conducting a private investigation. I asked him if he'd found anything helpful but he didn't share too much, he said Klose's father had been difficult when he gave statements, so there'd been problems. He didn't have much to tell me."

"I have no doubt something will turn up," Gracia's soft voice emerged as her hand brushed his hair smooth, "I cannot think of anyone better than the Brigadier General and Major Hawkeye to help you find Izumi and Winry."

Al nodded slowly, drifting into a thought that lingered above all else; beyond finding Winry, beyond finding Sensei, the task of finding his brother laid waiting.

"You'd better get going," Gracia broke Al's concentration, "Mr. Mitchell is a nice man, but when I spoke to him on the phone, he seemed a little upset that you'd disappeared and not come back to his office for anything."

Pushing the car door open, Al spoke as he stepped out of the car, "Don't worry, I'll apologize for worrying him."

Gracia dispensed the mothering finger of insistence as she pointed at him, "Make sure you do that."

"Yes ma'am."

"Bye bye Al!" Elysia poked her head out the open car window, an arm waving frantically.

"Bye bye Elysia," Al's amusement with her brightness never vanished. Taking the handle of the car door, Al hesitated before closing it, "Mrs. Hughes, " he looked back to her in the car, "I'll find a good time to talk to Mr. Mitchell about staying with you."

The most rewarding point in Alphonse's day was the warmth Gracia's smile filled his body with, "Give me a call whenever you need to."

"Yep," Al shut the car door and turned into the courtyard. His ears listened as the car's wheels spun away. Al couldn't figure himself out, the best way he could describe his day so far was 'uncomfortable' and 'uneasy', so why did he feel lighter with each step. The comfort in that sensation made him smile.

"Couldn't you cooperate in the slightest way?"

The bitter little voice stopped Al in mid step. The moment he turned to where the noise had originated from, his eyes fell upon the two children playing in the grass. Holding his hair off his face as the light breeze swept by, Al finally associated the voice with the child in red shirt and jean coveralls: Nina. He watched as little Nina tossed the rubber ball into the air, only to have it bounce in the grass for her companion to catch on the hop.

"Now, bounce it as high as you can," Nina's finger pointed high in the air, "we don't go back inside until you do something right."

Al watched as he crossed into the soft green grass towards the pair. Slowly growing confused, Al focused on the girl, obviously several years older than Nina and maybe even himself, dressed in a plain knee length orange sundress. She simply extended her arms and dropped the ball into the grass in front of herself.

"You're doing this deliberately, aren't you?" Nina rolled her eyes as her hands came to rest on her hips.

"Miss."

The nurse's voice was loud enough to catch both Nina and Alphonse's attention. Al stopped, glancing into the overhanging shade of a tree within the yard, where the woman sat upon a blanket, a book in hand.

"Young Alphonse is here to join us."

Nina looked out towards Al, swaying her hips from side to side, "Hi Alphonse."

"Hi," he began to move towards the pair once more, his feet leaving imprints in the golf course perfect grass as he walked, "what are you playing?"

"A girls game," Nina ran the few feet forward to pick up the multi coloured ball, "no boys in this game."

Al's eyebrows rose at the unwelcoming statement, quickly turning his attention over to Nina's playmate, realizing she was watching him. Why was it every bone in his body told him to disregard everything the little girl said? He eyed her playmate curiously; her short blonde hair hung around her head in waves of washed out curls. The potent hue of her blue eyes shone out despite how badly she squinted under the sun. Something bothered him, and he thought perhaps it was how heat stricken she looked.

Her hand came up slowly as the two shared the gaze with each other, wiping the sweat away from the sides of her face.

"Are you okay?" Al asked, stepping closer.

The girl stiffened where she stood, her nose wrinkling as an indignant look crossed her face in disapproval of Al's approach.

"She was running to catch the ball earlier, that's why she looks tired," Nina's voice shot out, stiff and cold, "and she doesn't want boys in this game either, just look at her face!"

"She looks like she needs a drink," Al glanced between the two girls, his voice strong in his challenge to the child's persistence, "shouldn't she go inside and get something?" he turned back to Nina's playmate, "do you want something to drink?"

Again, there was no response, just the defiant glare the older girl continued to defend herself with.

"She won't answer you, she's autistic," it was the nurse who stepped up to join the children, her book held firm in once hand, a glass of juice in the other, "she seems quite content to be outside in the sun without something drink, despite how it may look." Extending her hand, the woman placed the glass under the girl's nose, an action that promptly had the girl slapping the glass to the ground.

"See?"

Bending down to pick up the glass, Al gave a harsh look to the nurse as he straightened himself, "Maybe if you didn't hold it under her nose, she'd drink it."

"Does not matter where I put it, the reaction is the same," she snatched the empty container away.

"And she was playing ball with me, but now she won't do that either," Nina turned her nose into the air, "and I thought we could be really good friends too."

_"The nurse is busy doing things with Diana and my friend. I was helping her, but I got bored; I wanted to do something else."  
_  
Slowly shaking his head at the sudden memory, Al turned his attention to Nina's 'friend'. Making no attempt to lessen the concern written across his face, Al added a soft touch to his voice and smiled, "Did you want to go inside? You look really hot. Maybe you'd rather have some water instead of juice?" he extended a hand for her to take; only to have his wrist sharply snatched up by the nurse.

She spun Alphonse on his heels to face her, slapping his arm down at his side, "Social services left her in my care, not in your inexperienced hands. I would suggest–"

Al startled as he suddenly felt a hot and sweaty palm close around his right hand. Turning slowly, his peripheral vision caught the girl standing at his shoulder.

Looking out from the corners of her eyes, she made sure she caught and held Alphonse's gaze as if to communicate. Cautiously, she turned her attention towards Nina and the nurse once more, examining the startled reactions the two displayed by her acceptance of Al's presence.

"Entschuldigen Sie… wenn ich unterbreche."

"… Huh?" Al turned over his shoulder, eyes wide with confusion, instantly oblivious to the startled expressions upon the other's faces. "What did you say?" Al did not let go of her hand; he could feel the tremble within her touch and connected it to what lay beyond the deliberately stiff expression.

"Los," she took a step back, looking over towards the house as she pulled on Alphonse's arm, "wir wollen gehen."

Nina's arms folded across her chest slowly as the nurse's hand came to rest on her shoulder. The little girl's voice swept out in a whisper, "Is that it…?"

Alphonse ran what he could for her 'words' through his head, standing silent under the sun as he tried to see through what was going on. It wasn't until her free hand came up and flicked him on the cheek that Alphonse found himself moving towards the house with her.

"Na los, " her voice lowered as they walked, a cautious glance given back to the remaining pair standing in the useless afternoon breeze.

"I suppose there's no harm in letting her wander within the house," the nurse's frozen gaze turned down to Nina.

"Not now, anyways. She can't tell him anything," Nina shrugged, brushing her hair over her shoulders as she bent down to pick up the ball once more, "autism, you said? Okay…" a malevolent smile crawled across her face as she began to saunter towards the house.

* * *

It was like no sickness he'd ever experienced, his stomach felt as though it could tear itself apart. His heart raced so quickly and his breathing dipped so shallow he thought he might pass out. The feeling numbed Edward to the world around him.

"She's perfect," the man's words rang from his mouth like a poorly tuned instrument, stinging within Edward's ears, "God gave her back to me better than how she was before."

The door clicked shut. Upon a table in the corner of the room a tiny candle tossed the pale resemblance of light around, emitting distorted patterns as it passed through the half full glass of water next to it. Amann passed Edward by with a nipping breeze, moving within a room tucked away in the cold basement cave of the Thule cathedral.

_She was a doll.  
_  
A doll dressed in a white cotton gown and nothing more.

At the left corner of the room, she lay on her side atop the bed sheets; she was turned away from the room to face the wall, showing now interest in their intrusion.

Amann sat down at the edge of the bed; his eyes held a corrupted admiration of a father looking upon his newborn child, "So perfect; her skin is unblemished, a perfect shade of ivory white," Ed could not subdue the uncontrollable twitch that overtook his fingers as he re-clenched his good hand; watching as the man's fingers reach beyond where he could see clearly and brush over her cheek. Finally the errant hand swept over her neck to her shoulder, brushing the long strands of hair from shielding her arms, "this hair she hides her shoulders behind is like touching the silky lengths of what I would find on an infant's soft scalp. I wish I could never let it go. It shines like white gold." The carefree hand slipped uncontested under her arm; trickling down her side as he traced her outline, "she has such a perfect curve for such a young woman…"

So wrapped up in his own words and what he held in his eyes, the man never heard the sound of each approaching step Edward made.

_Just simply be a doll.  
_  
The hand finally came to rest at the highest point on the curve of her hip before sweeping out of Ed's sight once more, "She's well endowed and her hips are so strong; she's built perfectly to bear children…"

Amann's eyes finally lifted as Edward's hand reached out and closed a ruthless grasp around the man's wrist, preventing him preceding any father. The man allowed his arm to be limp in Ed's hold as he stood in contest of the man's violation; the yellow within his eyes set ablaze with a rage that refused to form words.

"What?" the cockiness of the voice curled the hairs on the back of Edward's neck before he felt the muscles stiffen in the arm he held, "are you still in awe of the Goddess I created from that budding girl or do you want to–"

It was a move made faster than Edward himself realized he could have accomplished; Amann suddenly finding himself flat on his back upon the bed, Ed's knee on his chest at his throat, pinning the daring right hand into the mattress, "Did you hurt her?"

_Please be a doll.  
_  
"What sort of question is that?" by the quiver traipsing through Ed's words, a mused grin grew across the man's face realizing how easily Edward could be provoked. Realizing any answer would upset Edward further, his words leaked out with malicious undertones, "And if I did, do you think there'd be anything you could do about it?"

As Ed drew back his mechanical arm, the figure upon the bed moved suddenly, sliding along the mattress away from the pair; her sudden movements diverting Ed's attention. The opening Ed had allowed was instantly taken, and Amann ripped his hand free of the grasp as he tried to force his oppressor away. The moment Edward felt the man's fat fingers reach up to grip around his neck; he reared the fisted right arm back once more and crushed it down with every bit of boiling rage that had spilled over. He paid as little attention to the sound the man's face made upon connection as he did to the snapping sounds of fingers on his metal hand.

The room fell silent in wake of the echoes.

The moment the hand dropped away from his neck, Edward shoved the limp body unceremoniously off the end of the bed and stepped off the mattress into the chill of the basement room once again. His shaken gaze ventured back to a figure he begged would vanish if he simply shut his eyes. It was so foolish of him to even try it; but for a moment, he thought 'why not?'

He watched her, huddled up in the corner of the bed against the cement wall; her knees pulled up under the white gown, bare toes pinching the end of the gown beneath her feet. Her arms wrapped around her knees pulled tight against her chest; head buried in the confines of those arms, untied lengths of blonde hair flowing down around her.

"… Winry…?"

_Not a doll.  
_  
Slowly, a tired set of clear blue eyes lifted to peer out from beyond the concealing arms.

His shoulders sank; the broken look that bled out from her gaze allowed the sick feeling to sweep over once more.

"… How?"

Edward's feet scraped forward across the cement floor before he came to sit on the edge of the bed in front of her. A thousand questions clouded his thoughts, obscuring some of the most burning questions churning between his ears…

Except one, "Are you okay?"

Her head slowly lifted from the protection of her arms; she did not reply.

"You're not hurt anywhere?" Edward's head ached, "no one's hurt you at all…?"

The moment Ed's hand reached out for her, Winry's shrill scream tore out, echoing within the dampened acoustics of the cement walls.

"_Don't touch me!_" she slapped Edward's startled hand away, "_go away! Don't touch me!_"

It was then he understood his mistake; so shaken he had not even realized what he'd done until she'd spoken. A nervous smile pushed onto his face as he spoke in clear English for her, "Sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Shut up!" the shrill pinch of her voice was sharper than the chill of the cement walls, "don't talk to me. You're not real," her trembling hands came up to grip over her ears as she did everything in her power not to make eye contact, "you're not real, this isn't real."

"Winry…"

"Go away, I have to wake up," the palms of her hands slapped her cheeks, "I'll wake UP!" the scream pushed Ed back, far more disturbed by her behavior than he had been by the other occurrences in the last hour, "I'll wake up eventually, I swear I will. I'm going to wake up and stand under the sun for hours, because burning under the sun is a far better fate than freezing to death. I refuse to freeze to death."

That's right, the room was cold, even for him; and he'd spent 5 years getting use to the chill of the world.

Ed's hand swept his bangs from his face, holding them at the top of his head. He tried to think, he needed something to say, something to calm her down. Nothing Edward thought of sufficed; it almost felt nostalgic, she was such a struggle for him to talk to.

"Just go away."

"Winry," Ed tried to extend his hand again, "I promise you this nightmare is a lot better when we're not down here. We can have some hot soup to warm you up and go shopping for stuff for the shop; it'll be my treat, just like always," he watched as she unsuccessfully tried to burry herself father into the corner of the bed, "come on, let's go somewhere else."

"GO AWAY!" again she slapped at his reaching hand, only to find herself screaming in fright at his sudden grasp around her right wrist.

"Stop screaming Winry!" Ed yelled back at her in protest of the piercing voice she used as a defence.

The back of her left hand struck sharply across Ed's face, jarring his head awkwardly to the side, "You're NOT Ed!"

No sooner had the words left her lips than Ed's hands had gripped her at the sides of her face. Winry's screaming stopped the moment her hands gripped his intruding reach; the texture of an AutoMail arm, regardless of quality, was not something she could mistake.

"Look at me!"

Winry's eyes continued to scan what she could see of his false arm. Though the metallic hand gripped her left cheek, she could not help but concern herself with why she could feel pressure from only two of the four fingers.

"I said look at me!" a desperate commanding voice called out from Ed's throat. His thumbs hooked under her chin, snapping her head up so he could look at her straight on. The twisting feeling returned to the pit of his stomach, unable decide which hurt more; the sound of her scream in fear of him, or watching the tears run down her cheeks while she looked back at him.

"Edward Elric, what do you think you are _doing_?"

His head shot over his shoulder towards the door, he had missed the sound of it opening.

"What on Earth…?" Hess pushed past the other Thule members standing around the doorway and rushed to the pile Amann lay in upon the floor.

Ed cautiously returned to his feet, shifting his gaze between Winry and the gathering of men.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Edward?" Dietrich's raging voice commanded the Elric's attention, "who let you down here and how did you get into this room?"

"What are you doing with her down here?" Ed's voice carried steadily and emotionless as he pointed to Winry. The longer Ed waited for a response, the more the silent answer annoyed him.

Hess glanced up from Amann, being the only one to carry an astonished tone to his voice, "He's unconscious. Edward, what did you hit him with?"

"My fist," Ed's response carried no compassion.

"Hohenheim get over here!" Dietrich bellowed over his shoulder, "get your son out of here before I rip that arm out of his shoulder."

"I'm not leaving without her," Ed stood squarely in the middle of the room, defiance written clearly across his face.

"Are you an idiot?" Dietrich raged, "God graced us with such a beautiful young woman and you think I'm going to just let her walk out with the delinquent son of the only man in our membership who still doubts what Amann and I accomplished…" Dietrich's eyes shot to Hohenheim as he stepped up next to him, "… I should have you shot for even _being _down here."

Wrapped in the same black robe as the others gathering at the door, Hohenheim's cold gaze fell upon Dietrich, "But you're not going to do that," the look drifted over to Edward who continued his defiance, stiffening his posture as his father's angered gaze cut into him.

"Get out Edward."

"_What is wrong with you? How long has she been here?_" Edward's bitter stance felt insignificant compared to the power in his father's words.

Hohenheim's jaw tightened, "Speak in German, your English is going to cause more problems."

Ed's eyes narrowed with insolence, "_Didn't I tell you to go to hell not too long ago?_"

Hohenheim's response was held back by his own pause while he scanned the occupants of the room, "_It isn't a stretch for me to say we're already there,_" he watched his son's stance loosen at the words.

Dietrich swung his raging voice into Hohenheim's face, "It's not that hard, just grab him by the hair and haul him on his ass out of the room," though he tried to storm forward, Hohenheim's hand gripped tightly at Dietrich's upper arm to hold him back. Further enraged, he whipped around to counter Hohenheim's unwavering poise, "Unhand me, I'll deal with your boy like the man he thinks he is; especially if he thinks that metal arm can put me down too."

Ed turned his wrinkled nose into the air as he narrowed his eyes, "Let's find out."

"Edward!" Hohenheim's voice snapped.

"Done," Dietrich turned sharply to face Ed, snapping his gun out from beneath the black robe he wore.

"Dietrich stop!" Hess yelled out.

It was not Hess's words that stopped him; it was Dietrich's sudden realization that Winry was standing behind Edward. Her hands resting on his shoulders, the chill from her touch seeped through the fabric of Ed's shirt to send shivers running through his skin. He found himself frozen where he stood, suddenly oblivious to the lowering handgun that had been pointed at him.

The animosity within the room evaporated instantly as the curious Thule eyes watched their guest move about; something they had not witnessed her do since the initial hours of her arrival.

"_I have no idea what everyone's yelling about,_" the only one close enough to hear her whisper clearly was Ed.

"_That's alright. It not very interesting,_" his lowered voice mirrored the pitch Winry had used.

Slowly, Winry walked a circle around him, her bare footsteps softly clapping off the cement, "Why are you so much taller than me?" It was the oddest sensation for her; she had to look up to see him.

"I had to grow eventually," neither knew the reason why the statement seemed so amusing; the corner of Ed's lips curled up at Winry's choked giggle.

Winry finally stepped back, a hand coming over her mouth as she turned away from Ed to see the gathering of men within the doorway. Scanning Dietrich, Winry's examination moved over the marvelling expression he wore and stopped at the lowered gun dangling in his fingers. The moment Dietrich realized that's what she was looking at; he quickly slipped it back under his robe.

Blinking at the swift action, Winry's gaze slid to Hohenheim. She knew his face, she knew who he was; she had even seen him within hours of being locked in the room after she'd tried to run away. He had not said a word to her the entire time; he'd only peeked in from time to time and kept the water in the glass full. There was no other set of peering eyes that interested her.

"Ed," his name had been the only thing she'd said that any of the Thule men had understood since her arrival. Turning an accusing gaze upon him, Winry watched as Ed's eyebrows rose at the sudden change in disposition.

"You've been doing something dangerous again, haven't you?"

It was a scripted response he'd always given her; it came in a package consisting of Ed's nervous grin and the raising of his hands in denial.

"It's nothing like that."

–

In Rizembool, in Central, in Rush Valley, in Dublith, in all of Amestris… that's how the conversation went.

Winry would accuse.

Edward and Alphonse would deny.

Winry would sigh.

And life would go on.

–

This time, Winry would cry.

And Edward would have no idea what life thought it was doing.

**

* * *

**

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**  
Originally, everything spoken in English was going to be in italics on Ed's side… but that looked hideous. So, I used italics to distinguish when we were switching languages (unless I specified) or when I wanted you to know it was English without typing "… said in English…" x.x;

I claim German illiteracy on any errors the handy German phrase tool gave me. I've never spoken more than 3 words of the language in my life; I beg for forgiveness from German speakers if I butchered your language in what little I typed.

I think Winry is the best thing Ed could have around as Germany picks away at his sanity and morality; there's only so much Hohenheim can do, and there's a LOT his German acquaintances would never understand. Ed needs a fresh shot of something… he's been stuck in a European rut for 5 years o.o…

Besides which, I just mucked up his PoS AutoMail; someone's gotta fix it.

Finding new Thule members to throw into the story is proving difficult… information on anyone except the people I've already introduced and people who had left Thule by this time is really hard to come by. Well, for my purposes anyways. I couldn't find much on Max Amann, other than he was important and had strong ties to Hitler, so this works.

I had a cute little scene with Havoc and something to do with ladies underwear, as well as some really cute (and long) rant Ed had about Hohenheim's ritualistic behaviour that I couldn't fit in… I hope to get another chance to write those in XD

**Previous Chapter Feedback**

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Thank you so much!


	13. Contrast Blue

**He Who Searches For Himself**

_

* * *

_

"Edward," Trisha's voice called out, "make sure you hold Winry and Alphonse's hands tight, okay?"

_"I wanna hold Winry's hand too," Al pouted as he toddled alongside his brother down the gravel path beneath the brilliant mid-day sun. The warmth of the summer rays filtered down through the forming shapes of puffy white clouds; pure white light drifting throughout the farm fields below._

_"Well I don't wanna hold a boy's hand," Winry scowled over to Ed, her face scrunched up tight in protest, "She didn't say I had to hold Al's too."_

_Ed's pudgy face grew extraordinarily cross, scowling fiercely at Winry's teasing, "Don't be mean to Al."_

_Winry shot her head away from Ed and turned her nose to the sky, "all boys have a boy disease and you're going to give it to me and Al 'cause you're holding our hands."_

_"Brother, I dun wanna boy disease," Al's little voice continued to pout until he fell silent, once again distracted from the ongoing debate._

_"Winry!" Ed picked up his squeaking voice in protest, "there's no such thing as a boy disease."_

_"Nuh'uh, you lie!"_

_"Brother!" Al suddenly bounced at his side, his voice squealing as he pointed out to the trio's right, "an octopus cloud!"_

_Ed's eyes widened as he followed his brother's pointing finger, "It is…"_

_"Wow, an octopus cloud," Winry mirrored Edward's gaping enthrallment of the sky. The children fell into silence, watching as their cloud paraded its solitary way across the crystal blue southern sky._

_"I bet it tastes like marshmallow…"_

**Chapter 64 - Contrast Blue**

Bacon?

She didn't notice the mid-morning sunlight until her eyes cracked open. She didn't remember the quilt over her shoulders until she shifted beneath it. She didn't confirm the bacon and eggs scent filtering into the room until she sniffed the air again.

Winry rolled onto her back, her arms sprawled out limp at her sides; tired eyes staring up at the ceiling. Her head rolled to her left to cast a weak gaze out into the clear sky washed with an ill grey. Her head rolled to her right to send the gaze into the room with its dresser, night stand, throw rug, desk, and partially opened door.

This was different, wasn't it?

She rubbed her eyes, hooking her toes into the edges of her wool socks to pull them off; her feet were hot. Casting the blue and green quilt aside, Winry pulled herself up and once again cast her eyes out the window. She was met with the sight of shingled brown roofs, smoke stacks, a church steeple with bell, orange and brown falling leaves.

Munich, huh?

Winry ran her fingers through the matted mess of hair falling around her; she couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd last had a shower. The weak eyes turned their attention back to a partially opened door. Pulling out from the relative comfort of the bed, Winry felt the baggy shirt and sweatpants flop around her body as she moved to the curious calling of the hallway beyond.

"Edward?"

"What?"

Winry stopped at the voices echoing from the floor below.

"Would Winry prefer apple or orange juice?"

"Orange. Dad where do you want me to put your handouts for those missed Monday and Wednesday classes? Straight into your bag or just in the folder on your desk?"

"My desk is fine. But make sure you're picking up your mess in the living room too. It's about time those papers got off of my coffee table and couch cushions. Dust the mantle above the fireplace while you're at it."

"Okay already, for the tenth time I'm doing it; your stuff just happens to be on the same table as my stuff. If you don't believe me, stop playing chef and look for yourself."

Winry's head tilted in confusion at the unusual pair of voices carrying on a conversation. Moving to stand at the white rail along the hallway she could see downstairs, almost far enough to catch the front door. Slowly, holding her hand firmly on the railing, she made her way down the stairs. She could smell it, it was bacon and eggs; it was so obvious. She could hear it sizzling on the pan, but what was lacking? As Winry reached the final step, her mind tried to figure out what was wrong with the aroma. It did very little to encourage her appetite. The more she thought about it, the more puzzling it became that she hadn't felt hungry in days.

With a cautious hand placed on the doorframe, Winry's face peered into the kitchen. Her eyes slowly embarking on an adventure around the room, gathering details, sensations, smells, colours, and locations. Winry almost disregarded Hohenheim's presence within the room as she absorbed the surroundings.

But he could feel the eyes. Placing his pan of bacon down upon a cooled element, Hohenheim took the dishtowel into his hands and turned. The mixture of confusion, fright and wonder within her preoccupied gaze left him nothing but amusement. He couldn't help but smile, "Did you sleep well?"

"Huh?" Winry blinked back to him, suddenly startled as she sheepishly slipped into the room, "… I guess so."

"Don't be shy, sit down," his focus returned to the task at hand, though he wasn't about to let her stand dazed in the middle of his kitchen, "it's closer to lunch than breakfast, but it's always good to start your day properly."

Winry moved cautiously to the kitchen table; a white tablecloth draped over the surface, cutlery already set out, glasses filled to the rim, napkins folded at the center of the table flanked by the salt and pepper shakers. She blinked in confusion at the quaint little setup before looking to Hohenheim; she watched as he moved from the stovetop, a steaming plate in hand.

"If memory serves me right, Trisha and Sara would make bacon and eggs at one of our houses on Sundays before Sara would take you three into town," he placed the plate organized with scramble eggs, bacon and hash browns on the table before Winry, "it's not Sunday, but I thought you'd like it anyways."

"Thank you," Winry searched in her mind; she could barely remember those Sundays, they stopped happening a long time ago.

Sitting down upon one of the table chairs, Hohenheim kept a gentle touch about his voice, "the food isn't going to taste that good. It'll be quite bland from what you're use to. There's nothing I can do about that, that's just the way things are here," from the undivided attention she had given him, Hohenheim carefully monitored her perplexed facial expression "same goes for your drinks and most smells; you senses aren't as heightened here as they were back home," picking up the fork from the table, he placed the utensil into Winry's uncertain hand, "you're also going to find that your appetite isn't very good, this doesn't mean you aren't suppose to eat. If you eat three meals a day, even if you're not hungry, you aren't going to feel as lethargic, and you're not going to starve. Alright?"

Winry's fascinated expression drooped as she sunk back in the wooden chair, her fork poking at the eggs, "That's a strange set of rules…"

Giving a laugh, Hohenheim stood back up, "Yes, I have to agree, it is quite strange."

Winry returned her attention to the wise, old man as he drifted back to the stove to sort the rest of the breakfast; slowly chewing on what was confirmed to be a tasteless mouthful of eggs.

"This is your house?"

Not deviating from his task, Hohenheim found himself smirking at Winry's question, "Yes, for a couple of years now."

Her attention trailed back to the kitchen exit; her fork balanced between her teeth as she spoke, "Does Ed live near by?"

It was innocent enough, but her questions continued to make Hohenheim's lips curl in amusement. He placed an additional two plates down at the table, "Very close. In fact, if you head back up those stairs you will find his room right by yours."

Winry's fork fell from her mouth as the statement blew by, snatching it quickly up off the floor as she turned her startled expression towards him, "You two live together?"

"Yes we do," grinning, Hohenheim snatched the fork from her hand and returned a clean one into her fingers, "and we're having breakfast together today too," his voice rose as quickly as Winry's eyes widened in reaction to it, "Edward, come and eat!"

* * *

"Aisa, what were you thinking? This isn't an orphanage…" Mr. Mitchell's hand held up at his forehead as he looked back into the meeting room, momentarily trying to figure out what Alphonse and his new guest were doing, "I can't take in every lost person or child off the street. Even if she has special needs, I'm running a country, not a daycare."

"Sir," Nina tugged on his sleeve, "she's really sweet sometimes, can't we keep her?"

Mr. Mitchell knelt down and scooped Nina's tiny fingers up into his strong hands, "I'd like to Nina, but I'm not sure if it's such a good idea just yet. It's not like asking to keep a puppy. I'll see what I can do for her, though."

The Mitchell's nurse, Aisa, held an unwavering focus upon the Prime Minister as he rose to his feet once again, "Social services are currently in the process of trying to locate her family, they were displaced during the March raid that Drachma laid out in the northern cities. Perhaps her stay with us can shed light on her situation and a reunion will be easier with the publicity, given her condition and your position."

The excuses were not sitting well with Mr. Mitchell, "And I need to focus my attentions elsewhere Aisa, my job is something a bit more serious than that; it's not like Lyra is here to help with any of this. And it makes it even more difficult to send the poor girl back given her condition; your intentions will make me look terrible in the public eye. I've been having enough problems trying to gain the country's respect," his attention redirected towards the meeting room adjoined to his ministerial office, his shoulders falling in dismay of the situation he did not want to be in, "what was her name again? Bernadette?"

Nina tiled her head to the side in confusion, "Alphonse said it was Brigitte."

"I was going to tell you last night, Sir," Aisa continued on, stepping up next to her employer, "but you did not return home."

"The Ishibal situation was too important, General Hakuro and I had a great deal that needed to be worked on; I couldn't leave," feverishly scratching his head, Mr. Mitchell sighed heavily, "Why did you have to bring her to my office? Couldn't you have told me this last night when I called?"

– –

_"Do you feel better now?" Al held in his giggles, watching her inhale a third cup of water and return the empty container to the glass top dining table the pair sat at. Al kept his attention on her as the shining blue eyes took in all that was to be had within the grand dining hall; the crystal chandelier hanging at the center, the oversized paintings and their elaborately decorated wooden frames, the spotlessly polished glass table on a black base and the twelve chairs surrounding it. Sheepishly, Brigitte took a napkin from one of the holders on the table and wiped the ring her cup left on the glass. _

_"Um…" Al swung his feet freely off the end of the chair as he glanced around, still puzzled by the incomprehensible words she'd spoken to him outside, "I don't suppose you can tell me your name, I don't want to ask those two."_

_"Huh?" was all she could give Al as he watched her eyes widen with uncertainty._

_"Your name… what's your name?" he persisted anyways, watching her visually dissect of every word coming off his lips._

_"…Name?" the moment she caught Al's realization that she had picked the key in his sentence, a smile of delight grew across her face, "Ich heiße Brigitte! Wie heißt du?"_

_Al slouched in his chair, his hand coming down over his hair as the momentary relief at communication flashed away, "… Oh boy."_

_Twisting her face in recognition of Al's confusion, she leaned over across the table to drive home her point, "Ich heiße... Brigitte! Br-i-gi-tte!"_

_The determination carried in her indecipherable tongue managed to draw Al back, "It's Brigitte? Your name is Brigitte?"_

_"Ja! Darf ich erfahren, wie Ihr Name ist?" Brigitte's hand reached out and snagged Al by the front of his shirt, realizing her words were a far greater puzzle to him than his English was for her. Her enunciation was precise, the free hand poking him square on the forehead, "Name."_

_"Ah! My name is Alphonse," he repeated the sentence key for her, "Alphonse."_

_"Alphonse?" sitting back down, Brigitte folded her arms across her chest, giving a firm nod of acknowledgement and eventually joining the laugh Al's nervous giggle spawned._

– –

_"Okay, so this game is called _'Cat's Cradle'_, I don't know if you play something like this around here, but let's see how we do."  
_  
At some point in time between that afternoon and the next, both Brigitte and Alphonse had surrendered to the idea that neither of them had any idea what the other was saying, beyond a few words of Brigitte's German that were also found in English. Though, it was Brigitte who felt more comfortable around the English language spoken by the 'victors' of the war her country had lost than Al did around a language never heard by anyone.

"What are you doing?" Al tilted his head, holding his hands out in front of himself as she weaved a ribbon around his fingers.

"_SO!_" Brigitte raised her hands next to her head, pinching her index fingers and thumbs together, "_you take these fingers and pinch the X's here and here, pull up, pull it around, put it back through and voila!_" she pulled the ribbon from Al's puzzled grasp to show him the new design she'd created, "_see?_"

"Interesting…" Al's face scrunched up as he examined what she had done. He straightened in surprise when she wiggled her fingers to discard the pattern back from her hands.

"_You're going to try in just a minute,_" Brigitte took a sharp step, spinning to stand tight to Al's side; catching Nina, the nurse, and Mr. Mitchell enter the room from the corner of her eye.

Al watched as Nina crawled up into one of the soft cushioned chairs, her nurse sitting down in the adjacent seat. His attention refocused on Mr. Mitchell, sitting upon the arm of a chair before the two older children.

"What do I do with you…" he rested his arms on his knees, examining the suddenly nervous Brigitte as she wound the ribbon up around her index finger, "that's such a stunning shade of blue you have in your eyes Miss. Brigitte, I bet they're your mother's."

Quickly exchanging a jittery glance with Alphonse, Brigitte forced out a sweet smile for the man.

Slowly shaking his head, Mr. Mitchell turned his growing displeasure unto his nurse, "I'm not impressed with the situation you left me with Aisa, and I can't send her away. I know you were a good friend of my wife's but if you overstep your bounds again I'll terminate your position. Is that understood?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Sir. I did not mean for this to turn into such a situation for you," she lowered her head.

"Ah, dammit, I can't keep everyone in here, I have a meeting scheduled in fifteen minutes and Diana is still being passed around the office," his hand slowly returning to his head in an attempt to cradle a headache, Mr. Mitchell glanced back to the door, "Aisa, why don't you take the children around the displays the museum director has been setting up in the main rotunda. It'll keep the children occupied until I'm done, the meeting shouldn't take long. I'll get Diana back from my grabby staff for you."

"Thank you, Sir. My apologies for the inconvenience."

"Ugh…" Mr. Mitchell grumbled as he hauled himself out of the room, "I'm going to need another nanny, too many kids in my house."

Cupping her hand over her mouth, Brigitte leaned over to whisper into Alphonse's ear, "_Who's that guy and what's going on?_"

Even if Al could have answered, his wide-eyed shrug of confusion sufficed as an answer for Brigitte. No sooner had she accepted the confusion than her attention quickly refocused to Nina, the child's eyes having not left her since she had come into the room. Brigitte wished she could escape the shiver it left her with.

* * *

"I'm some stranger in another life," Winry stared back at her reflection in the mirror. Grabbing a towel, she polished the mirror thinking that perhaps it was dirty. When it didn't come clean, she concluded that her eyes, complexion, skin tone, and hair, that everyone seemed to marvel over, were just as dull and faintly coloured as everything else she set her sights on.

"What am I doing?" it was like the homesick feeling brought on by summer camp, except summer camp eventually ends. With more precision than she'd ever bothered with at home, Winry folded the towel over the bar where it had been hanging. She stuck her head back out into the hall before turning out of the washroom and sauntering, hands behind her back, into the living room.

Looking up from the paper he read, Hohenheim watched as Winry slowly made her way around the room into the chair farthest from where he sat. Her eyes switched from the curious examination of Hohenheim to analyzing the rather quaint room everyone had been gathered in earlier. The grey, brick fireplace, the scenic oil paintings on the wall, the white drapery around the windows and back door, the soft plush couches, the hand crafted tables... it was so… homey.

"Where did Ed go?" the sentence should have continued on to include 'it feels like he's avoiding me' but Winry could not force herself to get that far.

"He's outside with Dr. Oberth. Edward helped you understand everything Hermann was asking you?" Hohenheim's eyes watched her with masked concern from beyond his paper.

"Yes, he did," the conversation evolved no further, Winry could feel the unease within herself knowing Hohenheim waited for her to ask something else; she let time lapse and he drifted back to the newspaper in his hands.

"Why does Ed live with you?" Winry had not intended for the question to come out as directly and poorly timed as it had; she glanced away at Hohenheim's obvious surprise.

"He's my son…"

Apparently, that answer made sense to him, so it was going to have to suffice, "Okay." Winry's fingers fidgeted in her lap, the conversations were so uncomfortable; she tried to extend the discussion to ease the feeling, "I don't understand. You said you lived in this house for two years, but I saw you in Rizembool last summer."

"We lived in a city called London for three years before coming here," a smile grew across Hohenheim's face at the horrified reaction taking over Winry, "when Edward came to this side of the Gate, I had already been here for well over a year. We ran a theory that the Gate has a poor concept of time, but to be more accurate, time runs at a different pace than back home." Hohenheim moved next to the chair Winry sat in and crouched down; her overwhelmed reaction did not let him go, "do you remember the date you left?"

"Um… it was the end of May," Winry frowned as she drew a blank on the exact date.

"What was the year?"

"1916."

Hohenheim put the paper up onto the arm of the chair and used his finger to underline the date, "On this side, today's date is Friday, September 24, 1921."

Her hand coming up into her hair, Winry wondered when she would stop spinning out of control, "That's a long time… is it 1921 back home now? Does that mean I'm 22 now?"

His amusement was inconceivable; Hohenheim couldn't help but take a wonderful pleasure in answering every question she had to ask. Her situation was drastically different from Edward's, and it allowed the opportunity for this conversation to take place, "No, it's still 1916 at home. Time moves faster over here, for every year we experience, only a couple months pass back home. And you're still however old you were before. I'll adjust your birth year to make it accurate on this side, like I did with Edward."

She was so dizzy from this. Why did she want to cry again? Her eyes should be out of tears by now. She was so tired of acting like a baby but there was nothing else she could do. The misery brought on by the displeasure over her own behaviour was only compounding the devastated feeling she was fighting.

"Do you want to lay back down?" Hohenheim read the clear emotional swing in Winry.

"I think I should," she wasn't expecting the hand Hohenheim gave her as he helped her to her feet; it shouldn't have been so embarrassing.

"We'll go back upstairs; sleep does help. Edward slept quite a bit when he first got here."

Winry accepted the escort back to her room, though she wondered how pathetic it looked having an escort take her snivelling self up a flight of stairs, "Ed probably dealt with being here a bit better than me."

Hohenheim drifted off into silence as the pair reached the top of the stairs, Winry finding her pace faster than his. Her foot touching down onto the top step, she turned back to see in his eyes how distant his thoughts had become.

"No, I think you're handling the situation a bit better than he did. Though, given the circumstances, he had a fair bit more to deal with; your transition has been much easier."

Winry's eyebrows knit together as she dragged her feet into a bedroom that was to become hers, wondering how the last week could be classified as 'easy'.

"The evenings and nights have been chilly lately, did you need another blanket?" the old man slipped his hands into his pockets, watching her sulk through the room.

Lazily throwing herself on the bed, Winry tugged at the edges of her quilt, "No, Ed got me this sometime in the middle of the night. It worked just fine."

"Edward brought you that last night?"

"Yeah," she turned her head over to watch Hohenheim enter the room, brushing his hand over the quilt as he sat down for a moment. She kept the story going, something was sitting uneasily within the situation, "Ed was up doing something, I don't know what. The floor squeaks a bit and he said he heard me moving. He came up and asked if I was okay, I told him I was cold. Ed wandered away and came back with that."

"Did he really?"

Winry's head tilted at the introspective voice drifting through the room, "Shouldn't he have?"

Hohenheim quickly drew himself away from his thoughts with the shake of his head, "It's fine; it's his, not mine. I just didn't think he would pull it out of the closet."

Winry watched as the odd conversation ended at that, the father she'd spent an awkward 24 hours getting to know pushed to his feet. He reached across the bed and pulled the curtains for her before turning a comforting smile towards her, "If you start to feel sick, or need anything, you know where to find us."

* * *

"Your daddy's funny! He makes things with alchemy like Al does!" Elysia giggled, walking hand in hand in conversation with Nina.

"I know, he made something for me too one day; he wanted to show me how good he was at it," Nina raised a poignant finger, "but he's not my daddy, he's my guardian."

"Nina," Mrs. Hughes crouched down behind the two girls, "doesn't Mr. Mitchell want you to think of him as a father?"

Nina turned back over her shoulder, finding that she was face to face with Mrs. Hughes, "He does. But it feels funny to say that, cause I know he's not my daddy and I have a real one somewhere."

Gracia's hand slowly came together, her eyes shifting from her own daughter back to Nina's conversation at hand, "When was the last time you saw your daddy?"

"A long time ago when I was really little!" her free hand resting on her hip, quickly turning to Elysia as she piped up.

"I haven't seen my daddy since I was really little too!"

Gracia forced herself to disregard her daughter's comment; for today, the moment the thirty-second phone call from Alphonse had ended, other things had been planned. Turning over her shoulder, Gracia looked to the crowd gathered around Aisa at the secretary's desk; employees huddled around the woman protectively holding the Prime Minister's baby girl. Once 'coincidentally' meeting within the rotunda, Gracia found herself invited up to the Ministerial wing of the building.

Remaining upon her knees by the two little girls still holding hands, Mrs. Hughes began to unzip her purse, "Was his name Shou Tucker?"

Nina squared herself silently in front of Gracia, watching as she pulled a letter envelope out from her purse. With the sudden snap of her tiny wrist, Nina withdrew her hand from Elysia's grasp, "I don't know."

"Well, is your last name Tucker? A girl of your age who can remember her father should have a first and last name."

"No, I'm just Nina."

It had bothered Gracia since the day Alphonse had brought it up, about the Mitchell girl who looked like the Tucker child who'd died. It made her sick to discover the reasons behind his State Alchemist title when she'd gone into the library's newspaper archives and found information concerning him. The final article she read on the issue pertained to what had happened with his daughter. Gracia could remember vividly Maes' insistence that the circumstances around Nina's death were something she did not need to know. It was the rare seriousness of her husband and the amount of time she knew he had spent on the case that made this final article unsatisfying. As ghastly as it was, this was simply not the story of some father's mental instability leading to the disappearance and suspected murder of his only child, as the article claimed. Gracia was certain that she had once overheard Maes mention the man had been executed for something, but there was no information to be found in regards to that. Some part of her wished she hadn't gone in search of the last moments of this Tucker family, because it left nothing but questions. Finally, today, at Al's prompting, Gracia arrived at the headquarters under the pretence of visiting her late husband's co-workers.

"But you said you have a real daddy somewhere, right?" Gracia pulled a service record photograph she'd been able to obtain from the envelope and placed it into Nina's palms, "many years ago I met a little girl you remind me of, this little girl disappeared one day and the father was blamed for her disappearance," it was as simple as Gracia could make the story out to be, "I don't know when you last saw your real daddy, but I wondered if this picture looks like him."

"That's not him," the suddenly cold eyes engaged the photograph, the decision only given momentary consideration, "my daddy's different than that."

Gracia could not explain it, how someone so little could emit such a furious aura; it did not dissipate when she took back the photo.

Al watched the situation unfold, his elbows latched onto the ledge of the window as he leaned back against it; his focus on the scene drifted as he lent his ears to a forlorn voice.

"_How come your sky is such a light blue? It's so full of sunlight, it makes it look really white; it's hard to look at,_" she did not expect an answer from her softly voiced statements, she simply kept her nose pressed against the window; absorbing the township, "_the white clouds are so bright and solid. How are clouds bright? They look like I can stand on them. Everything's so colourful, all the houses and people and clothes and streets. How come the cement was so hot when I took my sandals off? Why is it warm like this in September? I thought everyone in Europe had fall season at the same time…_" Brigitte's fingertips pushed against the glass window as she struggled to find a word the situation, "_I sound like a four year old, but I don't understand why everything's just so…_"

Turning to face outside, Al's hands came to rest on the window frame, his eyes watching Brigitte as she strayed away from the one sided conversation to absorb the fourth floor view of Central city. Her eyes followed the shadow patches beneath the clouds as the bright sunlight tumbled down from the sky around the growing puffs of clouds.

"You sound like you're either confused or daydreaming," Al tapped a knuckle off the pane of glass, inadvertently taking Brigitte's attention, "it's really nice out today."

Dropping the hefty black bag from her shoulder, Brigitte turned it on it's end and stood on top of it; pressing her forehead against the window to get a slightly different view of the streets below "_Is this what places are like that are rich and don't loose wars?_" she turned the wondrous expression down upon Alphonse who could not provide any sufficient response, "_is this England?_"

"What's an 'England'?" tilting his head as he watched her stand tall on the bag, Al narrowed an eye at her; curiously continuing on the unanswerable conversation, "Why do you keep talking on and on when you know I don't know what you're talking about?"

Something about the interrogating gaze Al gave her caused Brigitte to giggle, "_You look funny when you're confused, you make silly faces like Mr. Elric does, I want to take your picture and put it with the collection in my bag!_"

Al's hand reached up and quickly pulled Brigitte off her perch, his voice dipping to a whisper, "How'd you know my last name?"

Unsure how to respond to Al's startling behaviour; Brigitte simply remained wide-eyed.

"Don't say that name around here; it'll get a lot of people in trouble if someone finds out," Al waved his hands in a negative gesture to what she'd said, hoping to get a point across.

"_Did I say something wrong?_" Brigitte asked, uncertain to Al's negative tone and sense of panic.

The entire gathering turned their attention down the hall at the echo of footsteps and an accompanying voice, "Mr. Mitchell wanted to let everyone know he will be finished with his engagements shortly. I'm dreadfully sorry that I've left you with all these children Mrs. Hughes, the office has kept me far too wrapped up with Diana."

"No that's fine," Gracia returned to her feet, sweeping smooth her long skirt, "everyone loves babies."

Coming to stand next to Nina, the young Diana in her arms, the Mitchell family nurse turned a warmer gaze than Al was accustomed to down to the girl, "You've been good for Mrs. Hughes, Miss?"

"I have."

"She's been quite wonderful, she's a well mannered young lady," stepping forward towards Aisa, Gracia peered into the light baby blanket wrapped around baby Diana in her arms, "I can't imagine anyone giving her up for adoption, she's such a beautiful baby. May I hold her?"

After being forced to give into the office employee's demand to cradle the baby all afternoon long, Aisa once again found herself in a position where she was unable to retain her hold on the child, "Of course."

"There we go…" Gracia's warm smile grew as she tucked the bundle into the natural cradle within her arms. The expression softened and her voice cooed as she came to realize the child had been in one too many arms today, "oh dear, I didn't mean for this to start. It's okay baby… it's okay…"

The Mitchell nurse suppressed a satisfactory smile that wished to emerge as the baby began to cry in Gracia's hold.

Al's eyes suddenly turned back to the window, he'd been the only one to hear Brigitte gasp. Slowly as he turned around, he watched as Brigitte's trembling hands came up to grasp her ears. Her voice choked as she found herself suddenly short of breath, "_Just like what I heard in that dream…_"

"Brigitte?" Al's hand reached out and took a light hold on a wrist, "are you okay?"

"_I can't make it quieter no matter how hard I hold my head,_" the only step backwards she could make placed her back against the window; she held herself there, fingers digging into her hair as she tried to drown out the voice, "_just like when I was flying in the dream, the crying wouldn't stop… it was so loud. I couldn't go anywhere to make it stop…_"

Al looked to Mrs. Hughes as she began to hand the howling infant back to Aisa, wondering if she was noticing the situation, only to rip his attention to Brigitte as she tore off down the hall.

"Wait!" Al called after her, snatching the attention of the others. Without hesitation, he bolted down the hall in pursuit, leaving the remainder of the party in his wake.

"Nina!" Gracia's fingertips only grazed the girl's arm as she joined the precession of children running through the government building. It was startling to realize she was the only one who'd made any effort to stop the little girl. Taking Elysia by her hand, Gracia's head shot over her shoulder, "aren't you going to–?"

She was silenced by insensitive eyes worn by the Mitchell nurse; baby Diana in an arm, she merely walked down the path the children had taken without a word.

"Mummy?"

Picking her daughter up, Gracia joined the pursuit; ignoring Elysia's attempt to draw her mother's attention to the black bag Brigitte had left behind.

* * *

Winry pulled the quilt tight over her shoulders, pinning the ends into her lap. Her chin resting on the windowsill, she again stared into the rows of brown rooftops and smoke stacks deprived of any vibrancy. The mundane view was fascinating in all its depressing glory. Where was the personality in this scenery? Winry sat up straighter on the bed to see if she could see anything more, only to catch a reflection off the glass; she turned around sharply.

"The door wasn't shut," Ed pointed at it in defence, "I was about to knock, but you turned around."

Winry wrinkled her nose, "You better not turn into a peeping tom, or I'll beat you senseless."

Sweatdropping, Ed gave a nervous laugh as he walked across her room, "That's not going to happen."

Winry turned away from the intrusion and simply returned her chin to the windowsill. She slid her cross-legged self over from the centre of the frame when she realized Edward had crawled onto the mattress to join her. Taking the left pane of glass as his vantage point, Ed followed her gaze out the window, trying to see if there was anything worth looking at along this city horizon.

"Dad said you went back to sleep yesterday before I could tell you that Hermann said you were just fine, other than some strained muscles."

"That's nice," Winry's response was flat with little care for the observation; the conversations still felt uneasy, even if the unease was less with Ed than it was with his father, "Does that mean your dad's going to stop asking if I'm feeling sick? He's done that a couple times, I feel like I'm waiting for the roof to fall in."

Ed rolled his eyes, instantly railed by the statement, "Stupid old man."

Lifting her chin, Winry glanced over in surprise at his suddenly harsh disposition, "I didn't mean it like I was ungrateful, Ed."

"Whatever," waving a dismissing hand, Ed tried to discard the displeasure and annoyance, "just ignore him Winr—ow!"

Ed jerked away from the poking finger grazing the corner of his eye.

"Your eye cleared up a bit overnight, it's more white than bloodshot today. Some of that purple is gone too, but I bet you wouldn't look so funny if you weren't developing circles under your eyes," she grinned in contrast to Edward's defensive glare, waiting until he'd straightened himself before continuing her train of thought, "What did you do to it anyways?"

"I got hit with a baton."

Winry's reaction was deliberately distraught, "… You got beaten up by a cheerleader?"

"Dammit Winry," Ed did not realize how quick his voice was to snap, "I got blindsided by a police officer!"

"You what?" she wasn't in the mood to be snapped at by a cranky Edward, she felt miserable enough for the both of them, "You idiot, what sort of trouble did you get yourself in to?"

Ed bit back; sticking a finger into her face, "I didn't ask for any of this trouble you know!"

Winry slapped his hand away, "No, I didn't ask for any of this trouble; you–"

The conversation halted abruptly; Winry withholding her poorly conceived 'you did' retort. Regardless if she'd spoken it or not, Ed knew it was coming. Wishing she'd never thought of it, and Edward wishing he didn't deserve it, both returned their attention out into the dirty blue expanse beyond the window. Letting the quilt fall off her shoulders, Winry folded her arms in the window and returned to her interrogation of the sky.

Ed glanced over for a brief moment before training the silent vigil into the town once more. He found himself drifting away with a thought, wondering if he could pinpoint what it was that held Winry's fascination for hours on end. Absorbing the undesirable sensation he slowly became wrapped up in, Edward never meant to sigh aloud. Why only now did he realize how desensitized he'd become to the misery soaked into the grey sponge of the European sky.

A weight crippled Ed's posture as he sank in dismay of the forgotten crystal blue sky he had once held up in contrast to this shade lacking radiance.

"I like your quilt."

Ed blinked over to Winry as she smoothed it out over her lap, "That's nice."

"It looks sort of like one my mom made. The one we would all wrap up in to watch thunderstorms on the porch," she gazed only to the faint reflection of herself in the window while stepping through the memory, "Al would sit in the middle or else he'd cry because the loud thunder would 'get him' if he didn't."

Slow to respond to a past he'd had spent years treating as a forbidden secret, Ed forced through the feeling burdening his shoulders and poked a stiff mechanical index finger at the quilt, "Well, this one was a gift."

"Who'd you get it from?" A childish curiosity had suddenly over taken her enthusiasm.

"Some lady who was friends with my dad back in London," Ed narrowed an eye as he thought about it, "she called it a 'comfort blanket' or something like that."

"I know what that is," it was a refreshing feeling; something… anything of familiarity, "my parents had those around the house from time to time. I helped Mom make them when she was home. They were for the really sick children in the hospitals they'd go to."

"Yeah, apparently it's for something like that. Someone told me what it was supposed to be for long after I got it," Ed turned his nose up, a bitter sarcasm emerging in his voice, "So, thanks Mrs. Churchill, I'm glad you thought so highly of me."

"Ed, I doubt she meant it anything by it. The general purpose behind a comfort blanket is to make you feel better; sick or otherwise," Winry's unimpressed response to his behaviour simply lead to a scoff on Ed's part.

"I suppose."

Sighing heavily at the re-emergence of the stubborn behaviour, Winry dropped her chin back down onto the windowsill, "But this is Munich?"

"Yeah, this is some of it," Ed glanced to the leaves scattering across the rooftops once more.

"Leave it to you to end up somewhere ugly."

"Obviously you're feeling better today," Ed's eyes slit as he grumbled, "Trust me, there have been times and places that have looked a lot worse than this. And I didn't get much choice in what house we lived in."

She rewrapped herself in the quilt, reinforcing the unrelenting confusion and curiosity, "and this country is called Germany? And they speak German here? And you learnt this German?"

"Yes, yes, and yes," Ed nodded at each affirmation.

"And we decided I was gong to be 17 now cause it's September and not May, I'm born in 1904, not 1899" Winry scratched her head vigorously in confusion, "And you're… how old?"

"I told you, I'm twenty one."

"Lovely," her voice dripped with discontent at the entire situation she was having to rearrange in her mind, "not only has my seventeenth birthday been skipped, you're something like four or five years older than me." Sinking into the bundle she'd wrapped herself up in, Winry surrendered to the situation, "Well, that's not as weird as meeting Al as a ten year old, so I guess I can cope with this part."

Not until she turned in confusion to the non-responsive Edward did she realize how strongly she'd crushed him into silence. Even as she watched the swell of emotions take him over, Winry never realized he'd been afraid to bring it up; it was the reason behind why it felt like Ed had been avoiding her since they left the Thule hall. He'd been afraid to ask, it made his heart race too fast. For the two days she'd been living beneath this roof he couldn't bring himself to entertain the thought; what if she didn't say Al was…

"Al's what?"

The change in Ed's voice made it uncomfortable to respond. Winry didn't even have to look at him to realize the wave of emotion that had pulled him deep beneath a fully coherent surface.

"When we found Al…" Winry felt pinned beneath Edward's demanding eyes, "… he was only ten years old."

"Winry…" ten years old was inconsequential; he didn't bother to absorb any information beyond that which he begged to hear.

"Al's alive?"

Winry suddenly found herself removed from the depression brought on by the grey world, only to be placed before the firing squad held by Ed's desperate voice, "Yeah. Isn't that… why you're here?"

It was, wasn't it?

* * *

"That child was very… persistent," Roy's gaze followed Brigitte as her fascination with what was to be seen in a bright world beyond the panes of glass continued, "both girls were, in fact."

"Yeah…" Al sat himself down at one of the vacated chairs within Mustang's empty office, "I didn't think Brigitte would have so much objection following Mrs. Hughes back to Mr. Mitchell's office without me," Al sighed and put his chin on the desktop.

Dropping his black trench coat over the back of a chair, Roy again straightened the polo shirt, his expression still twisted out of shape; again his eyes followed Brigitte, "I assume that dialect she rambled on in was supposed to be an apology for trying to run me over in the hallway?"

"Yeah, I think so," unable to do much beyond frown, Al looked beyond the out of uniform officer to Brigitte once more, "sorry about her, I don't know what upset her."

"That's quite alright," perhaps, if things had stayed the way they had the first few minutes of their encounter, at the moment Mustang had been knocked clear off his hindered feet and Brigitte landed in a heap on the floor next to him, he'd have more interest in discussing the issue of this barely teenage girl and her inability to communicate. It wasn't until a childish and forgotten face he'd concentrated on years ago entered into their equation that he could have cared less how impossible Brigitte was to understand. The absence of an innocence he could clearly remember kept him upon the floor; he challenged the bone-chilling gaze Nina silently bestowed upon him until Mrs. Hughes arrived to cut the connection.

"This young lady did not seem to take well to Mrs. Hughes' arrival and even worse to that family's nanny… your suggestion that we go for a walk to calm her down made perfect sense given the circumstances," Roy's eyes narrowed as he again glanced back to Brigitte, "I'd like to know why that child was so adamant that your friend have nothing to do with 'someone like me'."

"Sir," Al's voice broke into Roy's concentration, "did you recognize her? Nina, I mean…"

Al knew the answer, he'd known from the moment the Brigadier General and Nina had made contact. It was like a silent conversation of bitter willpower; one set of eyes aggressively challenging for answers, and the other countering with a cold barrier towards intrusion.

Roy's eyebrows finally rose from the tight frown he'd locked himself into, "Why do you ask?"

The information flowed easily from his mouth; it had been a scenario he'd mulled over for far too long. Perhaps it had been Mrs. Hughes insistence that Mustang was someone he should trust that made the story all that much easier to tell, "Winry and I have been thinking… perhaps she was Nina Tucker," he had expected the look he received in response to carry confusion or distress towards the name, yet it simply narrowed in question; requesting continuation, "Mrs. Hughes showed me a picture of my brother that had Nina in it, and we were certain this girl was Nina. But the Nina in the photo would be around 10 years old today; this Nina is only around seven or eight. Mrs. Hughes told us that Nina had died, but…"

"Nina Tucker's father, Shou Tucker, was given the title 'Sewing Life Alchemist'," Roy's hands slipped slowly into his jean pockets as he leaned against his office desk. His low voice left no echo within the walls of the barren room, "both Hughes and Armstrong were assigned to the Fifth Laboratory case you and your brother were involved in…"

Al's eyes slowly widened as he focused his attention upon Mustang. As Mustang saw it, there was no harm telling Alphonse something he had already once known.

"… Hughes thought it best to keep much of the information to himself rather than disclosing information to me, so I don't know as many of the details as I'd like to. Shortly after the works within the laboratory were revealed, Fuhrer Bradley labelled the incident as classified. When the government was instated, it was discovered that a great number of military records had been destroyed; the Fifth Laboratory case was among them."

Glancing from child to child, not only did he have Alphonse's curiosity wrapped up around every word, but the intriguing eyes of Brigitte as well.

"As much as I came to understand, the Fifth Laboratory was used to facilitate a great number of alchemical 'experiments'. Only later through Lt. Col. Armstrong's work with Archer did we discover that Shou Tucker had been working to create chimeras within that building. From a laboratory we investigated beyond the city of Lior, my office later discovered that much of Tucker's chimera work had gone on at the Fifth Laboratory. Beyond creating chimeras for the military's purpose, he had been trying to create a chimera to replace his daughter."

Al turned in his chair, his hand gripping the back of the seat, "You can't… recreate someone by making a chimera."

"No, you can't," turning back, his gaze held seriousness, "but many of his failed experiments were uncovered when the Fifth Laboratory was torn down," lingering in the back of the officer's mind was the astonishment he felt at carrying on a conversation of this magnitude with such a young boy. Roy again reminded himself how old Ed and Al had been when their journey with the military commenced years ago.

"Something's missing…" Al found himself phasing out from his surroundings, trying to dissect what had been told to him.

Roy's attention refocused on the curious expression of Brigitte, standing against the office window looking back at him while he'd been speaking, "Your friend's name is Brigitte, correct?"

Too wrapped up in the thought to return his attention to Mustang, Al simply nodded. It was Brigitte however, who reacted to the calling of her own name, staring up into the single eye of a curious man slowly crouching down to an eye level with her.

"What language does she speak?"

"She doesn't," Al gave a shrug, looking from the corner of his eye to her momentarily, "the Mitchell's nurse said she has autism and she made up her own language because she doesn't know how to communicate properly."

"I've never heard of such a thing happening," Roy's nose wrinkled as he again cast a curious eye upon the figure at his window. The appearance of this child appropriately named Nina had been unsettling enough; the subdued viciousness within the eyes of the young girl compounded the feeling. Her attachment to Brigitte refused to relinquish his curiosity.

"Sir?"

Mustang's attention returned to Alphonse, narrowing his eyes at the stiff face the boy held. It was still odd to hear the voice address him, only to look up and see a young man rather than a towering suit of armour.

"Can you help me find this Shou Tucker?"

Something suddenly rewarding existed within the conversation; it was something Edward had never allowed: Mustang's direct involvement with their affairs.

"Why would you want to?"

"I think that girl is the same Nina who died five years ago. The only person with any reason to bring her back would be him. If he's found a way to perform a successful human transmutation–"

It was then that Mustang became gravely concerned for the direction that the conversation was headed, and whom it would imply, "Don't consider taking that path, human transmutation is a taboo you know isn't to be crossed."

"I'm not looking to perform a human transmutation," Al's voice was abrupt; from the moment he'd left Rizembool his intentions had been far greater than the Brigadier General could ever have considered.

"If this man knows how to perform a human transmutation, he might know how to access the Gate."

"Gate?" from then on, Alphonse's conversation moved a step above the State Alchemists concept of what he understood alchemy to be; he absorbed every word.

"The Alchemy Gate, I guess you can call it. Sensei said it was like looking into hell, but she also said my brother once called it a wealth of knowledge."

Reaching out, Roy lowered himself into one of the office chairs, his attention never wavering from Alphonse's voice.

"Sensei and I weren't looking to perform a human transmutation when we set out on this journey, she would never allow that. But we were looking to study alchemy so we could find a way to access the 'Alchemy Gate' and take something from it. I'm not going to resurrect my brother, because he's not dead; I'm going to take him from the gate, like what he did for me." Al brought his hand to his chest, "Unlike our mother, I wasn't dead; I was kept as payment to the gate for access to our mother's life. That's why my brother could complete the process of bringing me back without the Philosopher's Stone. In order to perform a transmutation of a dead human body, you need the Stone; but not if your making an exchange with the gate."

"Ed didn't use the Philosopher's Stone to bring you back?" Roy's head shook slowly in confusion, "then where did it go? We assumed that's how you…"

"I'd already used the stone to bring back my brother."

"Wait," Mustang's hand came up to stop Al, "…'bring your brother back'?"

Al nodded, "He died; he was killed; that's what Roze told me. But I used the Stone to bring him back and vanished into the gate when I did that."

Roy's hand came to his temple as he slumped in the chair, slowly exhaling at the wealth of information, "Go on…"

"Sensei and I talked about it for a while before we left for Dublith. When a human transmutation is performed, the alchemy circles and ingredients alone are insufficient; you need to offer a personal sacrifice to access the person's life; that sacrifice is kept by the gate as a 'right of passage'. I guess you can look at it as a toll. In order to recreate life from death you need the Philosopher's Stone, because an alchemist's own will power will never be enough. But you don't need the Stone to retrieve your toll… even if your toll is life. I'm proof of that."

If his mind could spin any faster he would loose it. Were these Elric brothers always this far ahead with what they knew?

"You only get to see the Alchemy Gate when you're looking to request something from it, like a life, any of the three components to existence: mind, body and soul… or your 'toll fee'. My brother's leg and my whole body and soul were the gate toll only for 'access' to our mother's life, my brother's toll to retrieve my soul from within the gate was his arm, my brother's whole self and everything my armoured self had become were the toll to retrieve me from the gate as I am right now. My existence as armour was given up so my soul could be released into my body from the seal my brother made. If that hadn't happened, the mediation between the armour and my soul would still exist. I would have come back with only my mind and body; I'd be a lifeless doll. That's what Sensei and I were theorizing before we left. Some of those heavy books in Mrs. Mitchell's collection I read when I first got there helped clarify some of that. I'd like to know where she got them from."

"In order to recreate life, you require toll payment to access the contents of the gate, then the Philosopher's Stone to recreate the dead life," somewhere in the back of his consciousness, Roy thanked Maes' discouragement of his study of human transmutation, "but you do not need the Philosopher's Stone to access this gate and retrieve items given up as 'toll payment'?"

"Exactly, you just need to find the entrance and a key," Al nodded to affirm the question, his eyes still holding determination firmly at the throat, "the only thing I want to do is take back from the gate my brother's toll fee; himself."

"Edward is not dead?" it boiled his blood beneath the calmed exterior. Everything he had allowed those boys to go through, everything everyone had encouraged them towards; there had been another way all along. It was so excruciatingly vivid… what their collective ignorance cost everyone…

"_Edward?_" Brigitte murmured to herself, picking out a familiar name from within the conversation as she turned to gaze back out the clear window.

_

* * *

_

"Al, let's bring Mom back."

_"All is the world! One is me!"_

_"The world is constantly flowing. A person dying is part of that flow, that's why you must not think of reviving the dead."_

_"I'll give you my leg, arms or heart. So give him back. He's the only little brother I have!"_

_"Tell me what you are going to do with that body? I'll find a way to return your normal bod–."_

–

Edward gasped so sharply he choked from the startle the hand resting on his shoulder gave him.

"I didn't think you heard me come in," Hohenheim stepped back from his daydreaming son beneath the setting sunlight flowing in from the gaping windows of the empty Thule cathedral, "I was almost hoping you wouldn't come here so soon after everything."

A worn out gaze was returned to Hohenheim. Unresponsive, Edward's lethargic expression eventually turning up into the dome ceiling he stood beneath.

"Are you sleeping, Edward? You're still up when I go to bed and you're awake before I am," the question was poised regardless of the fact that he realized there would be no response, "every time I step out of my room there's a light on downstairs and Winry's said you've been up at night. I know how hard it's been for me to sleep, but I think it's time you came home and reacquainted yourself with your bedroom before you make yourself sick."

At the centre of his great mystery, Ed abolished the words of concern as though they had never come into existence, "A trace of magnesium shouldn't have made any difference," he tapped the tip of his polished shoe against the engraved cement as his vision slowly fell from above.

"No, I doubt it did."

Letting himself fall back onto the dark shade of his shadow, Ed sat down upon the etching; crossing his legs as he slouched over in the silence that existed beyond his own voice, "And I watched Hess kill people before at the centre of this thing, and still nothing happened…"

"Edward," Hohenheim reached an aged hand to the cement as he joined his son upon the floor, legs not strong enough today to stand up under the weight of evidence, "that night a few weeks back when I came home late, I'd stayed at the Thule hall because something happened in this room," he waited while Ed gathered together what there was to be had of his undivided attention, "I had wanted to bring it up earlier, but more important matters came up."

Hohenheim wondered just how tired Edward could have been to allow the old man to sweep aside his curtain of bangs and brush a thumb high over a cheekbone that was still discoloured.

"I have no idea why, or any explanation how, but this sigil had a power flow. I've seen a lot of disturbing things in Germany, but that one was beyond my comprehension," human behaviour could be explained even in the cruellest of fashions, it was the impossibility that broke nature's laws that Hohenheim struggled with, "I didn't dare come within two meters of the cursed thing, but anyone who walked across it did so without any problem. By the end of the night the circulation had dissipated and I asked Dietrich to go over the original layout plans for the hall with me, but nothing stood out. I have no idea why it suddenly reacted at that moment."

"Do you believe him?" Ed turned an eye down to a semi functioning mechanical arm that he'd not asked anyone to deal with yet, "What he said happened to Brigitte… how Winry got here."

"Do you?" it was a rhetorical question, Hohenheim knew both of them had no choice but to accept the underlying circumstances, "We both know that what Max did was not a human transmutation, but he did take Winry out from the… other…"

Hohenheim's voice trailed off, listening to the subtle laughter Ed indulged in, the voice barely holding enough energy to fill the room with the sound.

"He opened the Gate, _somehow_, from this side… and of all the people in the world he could have chosen, he took Winry," Ed's amusement subsided as he shook his head in disbelief, "I don't buy that," Ed pulled himself to his feet; his mind returning to a distant thought, "… I wonder what happened to Brigitte."

"Have you talked to Winry about what she knows?" Hohenheim followed suit, rising up.

"I wanted to wait until she felt better before asking too many questions. It didn't feel like she was really coming to her senses until today," Ed gave a lazy shrug before turning curiously to his father, "Have you said anything to her?"

"Now and then when she's out of her room. I talked to her today to find out where you'd gone, I didn't expect to come home and find her by herself," Hohenheim watched as his words lowered Ed's eyes until the younger of the two took a step away.

"I just needed to go for a walk."

"This is a long walk to make."

"It wasn't bad."

The remnants of Ed's voice trailed off into the silence left behind. As though waiting for a cue, Hohenheim held his distance from the wandering son until a moment emerged where he could again invite him back home. The opportunity was delayed when Ed turned back, his expression held sternly.

"Why haven't you ever brought Al up?" Ed caught the old man's eyebrows rise, "you told everyone when I first came to London that I was your only child. You've never asked me about him or wonder how he'd dealt with being sealed in that armour for so long. I've never heard you wonder if he's alive, if I'd failed or not, how he might be doing if he were around… you just add your two cents worth into whatever I would have been thinking and are done with it."

"Edward, he's my youngest son, of course I think about him," as preposterous as the question was from a parent's point of view, Hohenheim knew Ed had every right to ask him, "and I think about what you boys did, and what you did in the end. I can empathize with it far too well. But, what do you want me to say?"

It left Ed to wonder; what was there to be said? There had always been an unspoken acknowledgement his father gave of Alphonse; he was the reason Ed was there. Alphonse was his son too; the younger son, younger brother, in what felt like a different life. A life the man had no part of. A life Ed knew his father would not go back to.

"Dad…" perhaps it was not the opinion on the younger son which Ed sought, "…everything I've done here has really had a purpose. I brought Al back; I believed in it before but now I know," and it made him feel light as air, "I know it worked, that changes everything somehow, I know I didn't just…" a sharp exhale transitioned Ed's thoughts, "after five years of this, I know he's there, he's living, he's breathing, he's eating, Winry said he's searching for me and I just need to–"

His father's hands were silencing, holding him mute once they'd come to rest high on his shoulders.

"I think you've been punished enough by now," Hohenheim felt the strained muscles beneath his hands give way, "Relax in the justification Alphonse has given you of your presence here, consider it his gift of peace and tranquility within mankind's hell, and make sure to thank Winry for delivering the message later. Exist in the moment before the feeling passes, and then build off of it another day. Get some lemon tea, take back that blanket from Winry for the night and fall asleep in front of the fire place like you use to."

The hands pushed off of Edward's shoulder as Hohenheim created a breeze while passing his son. He slid a single hand into a pocket; he made no attempt to soften his footsteps on approach to the exit, the tip of his ponytail flipped with each step.

"Dad, I –" Ed turned over his shoulder, only to be stopped by a silencing finger held high at the man's side.

"Look at my foolish son: Edward."

The set of questioning eyes widened at the booming sound of a father's voice. A voice calling out as if it were critical, yet blowing whimsically around he who stood in silence at the centre of the chamber. The sole of the son's shoe pressed into the cement while pivoting towards the calling; turning himself to watch the waving coattails of someone always a step ahead.

"Look at what he's done for himself, shame on him. He succeeded where his old man once failed and returned to him a child for a life that was, and for life that is. What's this world coming to when a son surpasses his father?"

The pale evening sunlight stretched Edward's solitary shadow long across the floor.

.  
.

Brushing the soiled flesh palm on the brown coat hanging from his shoulders, Ed followed in the preceding footsteps back to a street where his ride home waited; uncounted minutes having passed since the walls held him silent within an unyielding echo of the lingering voice.

**

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**

To Be Continued...

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**

Warm fuzzies for Ed!

From the beginning of the story XD; that little cloud piece… I shall direct you to www . livejournal . com / users / yuuki / 68983 . html for a little bit more fluff and some fanart for that scene.

First I'll address a couple things that AmunRa brought up (cause they are valid and you may be wondering them)

_Why aren't Nina and the Nurse more careful with Brigitte?_ They didn't completely realize at the time what had happened, that they'd gotten someone from 'the other side', because Brigitte was very uncooperative and not talking to them. She was a sudden anomaly in their lives. They sort of shot themselves in the foot by doing the swap in the baby's room, which is in the middle of the house, rather than in a discrete location. Can't hide a 13 year old girl in the Prime Minister's house (despite the fact there's few people there, it's a location very much under the microscope). They're also in a tight predicament, because when Dante-Lyra was around, she was in a VERY powerful position (the wife of the man running the country) and she was very active 'helping' her husband 6.6;.

_Ed got the quilt after his stay in the hospital?_ Ed got the quilt during his hospital stay. In that flashback chapter, Ed and Mrs. Churchill have a brief conversation where she mentions how she makes quilts for the children in the hospitals, and the extra one for him was no problem. He received it before he'd left.

I hope everyone understands the difference I laid out behind the human transmutation idea. Human transmutation from a resurrection standpoint requires the Philosopher's Stone because an alchemist isn't powerful enough to complete the transmutation. Without the Stone you are only granted ACCESS to the person's life, you aren't handed the life. Ed did not require the Stone to retrieve Al's body because Human!Al was held as payment for the access privileges. Think of it like: Ed is at the front desk inside a building (the Gate) asking for his deposit back (Human!Al) which he paid to access the rest of the floors, but he was not asking for anything from those other floors, just the deposit. If Ed was asking for something from within the other floors of the building (IE: Trisha) that would be human transmutation. Get it?

_"Wait wait… I'm still confused. Al said you need a sacrifice for 'right of passage' then the Stone to recreate the life, but when Tucker brought back Nina he didn't have to offer a sacrifice to get her"_. Al doesn't know this. Al doesn't realize that the Philosopher's Stone is a door key and toll-exempt as well. Wayyyyy back in chapter three (yikes) the back-story unfolded to reveal Al was never told that he had become the Philosopher's Stone; he was only told he was in possession of it. The family chose to tell Al this so that he would think that even with the Stone there would be a sacrifice and they wanted to discourage Al as much as possible from even thinking of going after the Stone.

Now, in episode 51, once Al had used the Stone to resurrect his brother (after Envy impaled him… x.x) he vanished into the Gate. Al didn't die; he just vanished into the Gate (cause the Stone made him special that way… and his mind and body were still in there). The Gate reclaimed Al's soul as part of their initial toll from when the boys tried to resurrect their mother.

_"So then… you need to pay a 'toll' to get your toll back?"_ In 'theory', yes, and Al wants to find a way around that. He said he's going to "take" Ed from the Gate. Ed's line of thinking when he got Al back was "exchange my life for his". Al's upping the ante. Remember: equivalent exchange isn't as black and white as the boys once thought.

_"Hmmm… didn't Izumi say at the end of the series that Ed offered the 5 years of memories up along with himself to get Al back?"_ Yes, yes she did. What I did with that was expand on the original idea. Thank you episode 51 for cramming 7-some months into 10 minutes :D you left me lots of opportunity to go "well, they COULD have talked about this :D lets say that they did!"

_"How the hell did Izumi and Al figure this out?"_ Well… they needed to find some way to completely rationalize how Al came back and find some way of approaching the retrieval of Ed. It may not be exactly how it'll work, but it's a big step in the right direction.

I _hate_ Tucker :D ALMOST as much as I hate Archer… until they made Terminarcher and I've laughed at him ever since. I'm glad Archer is dead… I'd never be able to write him, I can't take him seriously XD;;;

**Previous Chapter Feedback**

Thanks to everyone for the lovely feedback. Again, as with previous chapter, the review replies rec'd between the two chapter postings have been archived!

http:/ yuuki(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)110007(dot)html


	14. Flow of Changeover

**He Who Searches For Himself**

_

* * *

_

Leaving the wives and remaining children behind, Hohenheim picked up the son that followed him out the shop door and placed him where the little imp had claimed to be his rightful spot: atop dad's shoulders. The warmth of the midday sun wrapped the life below in a blanket only suitable for lounging around during such a peaceful day. And as his father walked the path through town, the little son kept his eyes open as he slouched over his father's head, cheek loosening the tightened ponytail as he buried his face into the downy blonde hair. Hohenheim paid no mind; he was used to it, even if his wife would nag that the boy should walk on his own two feet, he did not mind the presence on his shoulders.

_"Daddy," like a kitten kneading a blanket, Ed's fingers played in his father's hair; his wide eyes embedded on a lazy body that examined the activity in the town, "where are we going now?"_

_Though unable to see, Hohenheim glanced up at his son regardless, "Remember, daddy needed to go to the post office. I had a phone call last night telling me that there was a box with my name on it."_

_"Really?" Ed curled his lips in amusement at the thought of what could be in the box, "maybe someone sent you chocolate."_

_Entertained by how his son's mind was still wrapped up with the candy store, he did his best not to laugh, "Perhaps someone did send me chocolate. But I'm going to guess it's a book."_

_"You have lots of those already," Ed's nose twisted, "Mommy said that she's going to burry them in the field if you get more."_

_"Did she really?" Hohenheim's brow rose at the statement, "well, we'll have to have a talk with Mommy and tell her that my books make poor fertilizer."_

_Though restrained by his father's hands, Ed still made the attempt to swing his legs as his voice sang, "I already told her you'd say that!"_

_"I'm sure you did," Hohenheim laughed._

**

* * *

**

Chapter 65 - Flow of Changeover

* * *

"Ed?" stifling the concern within her voice, Winry lifted her eyes from the mess of paper thrown across the kitchen table and stretching out on the floor.

"Ed?" she pushed back her chair, careful to not disturb the organized disaster that had been amassing over a string of days. Perching upon the highest points on her toes, Winry stepped through the chaos as she held several key pages in hand.

It was a pile… a mountain of research Ed had amassed in colour-coded folders. If she thought about it hard enough, it would make her sick to realize just how much effort Ed had put into so much only to obtain so little in the end. The pile organized within the blue folders had been all his work for the AutoMail. The far larger pile organized within the white had been the work he'd done to approach getting home.

The one thing Ed could be reliable for was deep paperwork when it came to something he deemed to be of great importance; everything was numbered, dated, tabbed, sorted… though only in an order he himself understood. Winry thought it was nice that he at least kept an aura of organization about himself.

She'd asked again a week ago when it was that Ed had arrived in London; it had been in September of 1916. Her eyes would constantly refocus on the dates of the documents; the first date in the AutoMail folder was over half a year later in May of 1917, the first date in the collection of white folders that would get Ed home was for December 1917.

She struggled to believe that Ed had put off his quest to return home for over a year.

Without hesitation, Ed had eagerly spent days going over every bit of the ink he'd scrawled on the papers. The work that they both knew were her main interest was his AutoMail designs. The more he spoke, the more she itched to get her hands dirty. What a formidable challenge: starting from absolute scratch. Ed promised to take her to the science and medical wings of the university when opportunity would allow for them to dig around the institution in peace.

But it was the philosophy that made her head spin; the quest to get home and the childish delight Ed carried as he chattered on about all he had learned about alchemy; things he'd never dreamed he could understand. Ed asked her if she remembered how he'd mentioned that he could see all the information he desired beyond the Gate, but could not reach it. It was suddenly there for him to touch, to read, to dissect, to interpret and then understand. The months Ed had spent on an adventure to Greece and the mountain of paperwork he tried to explain to her were mind-boggling. Not only was he talking in this foreign alchemy language she kept a mild interest in, but he was also toiling in mythology, and that seemed far more complex than alchemy could ever have been. It had only carried her casual interest until Ed began explaining how Amestris alchemy intertwined with the ancients of Greece. Yet, with all the intricate details and the amount of delight Ed revelled in, she struggled through the idea that as they were now, the information was useless to him. He must have been aware of it; there was no way that he couldn't be, so he must be ignoring it. From the ancient Greeks to the Thule hall floor and back over to the Munich university where Ed toiled in mechanical science; she wondered how hard it had been for him to accept that every path he took lead to something so far beyond his reach that he had to surrender to the impossibility of it. The more time she spent with Ed, the more Winry wondered how it had affected him; she was afraid to look too hard into his eyes, afraid of what she'd find.

And now, stalled in her tracks as she stared down at the contents of this open folder fanned out on the floor, Winry bent down. With the tip of her index finger, she slid the unsettling evidence that never left her mind out from the alchemy arrays and tucked it into the pile of papers she was going to base her own conclusions on.

"Dammit Ed! What the hell are you doing?" flying out of the kitchen to avoid displacing any of the precariously placed works, Winry stormed through the house. Cutting into the living room, she could hear sounds from beyond the patio door. Pushing the curtains aside and jerking at the stubborn door handle until it opened, Winry poked her head out into the yard.

"Ed! Wher… what are you doing?"

"I'm raking the leaves," he swung the rake over his left shoulder as he cast a casual look her way.

Leaning up against the doorframe, her slippered foot propping the door open, Winry narrowed her gaze suspiciously as she adjusted the oversized night shirt, "That's nice of you."

Ed scoffed at the comment, "Better than waiting for him to tell me to do it," with the twist of his wrist, the rake landed into the layers of crunchy leaves, "every year Dad goes 'Edward, can you rake the leaves in the yard?' like he can't do it himself. Then he nags, I tell him to screw off and he nags more; it's annoying. I'll do it before I have to listen to his nagging again."

Winry's posture slouched as she thought over his declaration. She considered telling him that the entire point of disobedience was to _not _do as his father was asking, but it seemed more amusing to let him think that he was somehow obtaining the upper hand in the situation this way. Winry giggled to herself, wondering how Hohenheim managed to train him so well.

"Now what?" Ed's shoulders fell as he watched her giggle.

"Do you want me to get those two fingers moving again?" a bemused grin ran across her face while changing topics, " I think I figured out an interim fix without having to re-do the internal mechanism."

"Yeah, whatever you think will work. You're the expert," propping the rake up against the tree that was giving him something to do, Ed dusted his bare hand off and made his way towards her, "have the notes been helping at all?"

"This place is so primitive, I can't believe you got that much movement out of your arm. I need so much equipment from back home, you don't even have 0.1 pinchers and clasps for nerve endings, nothing here even comes close," rolling her eyes at the thought, Winry sighed, "and those schematics for your arm are a headache, you're a disgrace to AutoMail makers everywhere."

A little vein pinched on Ed's forehead, "Gee thanks."

"But…" she'd not gone in search of Ed to discuss the issue of his AutoMail, "I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything you collected in Greece, it's kind of interesting," she watched his expression change with surprise at her interest in the topic, "can I ask you something about your notes?"

In simultaneous motions, the pair came to sit on the steps of the porch, "Yeah, sure."

"That symbol that was on both Roze's baby and baby Diana…" from the few AutoMail papers she had taken with her, Winry produced the transmutation circle that haunted her, "you said this links to the gate. Then you started talking about how the Greeks thought that there was a 'God-figure' who looked after the gate but there wasn't actually anyone there. What was that God's name again?"

"Um… Hermes. It wasn't so much that he babysat the gate, more like he helped guide people across the gate or boundary or whatever to the 'other world'. There's a syncretistic alchemy term called 'Hermes Trismegistus' that is derived from that. It's sort of convoluted… why do you want to know?"

Winry laced her fingers, "What were his kid's names again and what was wrong with them?"

"Why…?" his puzzled face stretched long as his voice cautiously slipped out.

"Just answer the question!"

Tapping his feet in the crunch of leaves, Ed racked his brain for her, "Um… Pan, Abderus, Hermaphroditus and-"

"Yeah that one!" Winry interrupted him, "What did you say was wrong with him?"

Ed's bare hands slapped over his kneecaps, "Dammit Winry, weren't you just in the kitchen? Why didn't you look it up?"

"Oh I am so sorry, I guess you weren't the one who said 'do not mess up the notes'; I guess I will just go tear all of the papers apart until I find this information somewhere," the words snapped off her tongue before Ed's hand came up to cover his face.

"He was fused into a hermaphrodite because of some love story with a fairie… something like that…"

"Okay, that's what I thought but I wasn't sure. Now…" the brimming amusement at his compliance masked the unsettled feeling in her stomach, "what's a hermaphrodite?"

"It's like a man and a woman fused together."

"Can you do this with alchemy?"

Ed's eyes watched as Winry reached out and plucked a newly fallen leaf from his hair, "… Why would you want to?"

Tossing the crusty piece of nature into the trampled brown grass, her hands clasped in her lap under the aura of innocence; Winry simply shrugged.

"I… guess…" Ed's nose wrinkled at the thought, "though I wouldn't want to try…"

"And what if someone did?" she would not let the issue drift away.

Responding flatly, Ed wondered if the answer could have been any more obvious, "… Then they'd have a hermaphrodite…?"

Despite the sarcasm, she needed to know; the words of a frightening voice still haunted her thoughts when she closed her eyes, "Is that something special?"

"I dunno," Ed blinked, scratching his head feverishly as he wondered about the bizarre line of questions, "it's like some messed up combination using the principals of chimera and human transmutation. It maybe special, I don't know, I've never read anything about it."

"Oh…"

* * *

"Do you have everything?"

Al glanced up to the Brigadier General, "I think so," he shifted the backpack on his shoulders before returning to searching the crowds.

The bells at Central Station began to sound; ten minutes until departure. The steam from the locomotive let off a deafening whistle. Al wiggled a finger in his ear as he again watched the send off party converse with each other.

With a flick of his wrist, Mustang slid a card into Havoc's shirt pocket, "Where we can be reached."

"You betcha," Havoc patted the spot securely.

"Sir, are you certain that you and Major Hawkeye do not require additional escorts for your journey?" Armstrong's concerned expression fell down upon the smirking officer.

"I'm still considered off duty until I receive medical clearance," Roy's hands slid into his pockets, "How would it look if I took military personnel beyond my direct subordinate with me on a personal venture? There would be too much suspicion."

Folding his arms across his chest, Havoc rolled his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other; his voice toiling with trouble, "it looks 'suspicious' enough that you're taking only your direct subordinate away with you on a personal venture."

Both Lt. Ross and Lt. Breda found themselves biting their cheeks as they quickly turned away in search of something else to do.

Havoc merely shrugged, holding his poker face as he spun the cigarette, allowing the vicious gazes of the two officers in question to pass right by him, "I'm just saying… because the Major is not on leave anymore."

"I'm using my holiday time," Riza replied flatly.

"Ohh… okay, holiday time."

If looks could kill, or if Roy's gloved hand would have not made a scene, Havoc would have died a long time ago, and he knew it.

"Lt. Colonel," Mustang redirected the conversation to Armstrong, "we are perfectly capable of accompanying Alphonse on this trip. I don't think Mrs. Hughes would have allowed him to leave the house otherwise."

Al started to giggle nervously, remembering how strongly Gracia had objected when he had insisted on going with Roy and Riza to the laboratory where Shou Tucker had began his studies almost ten years ago.

It had been almost a week since he'd divulged his intentions to Roy, and three days since Mr. Mitchell had reluctantly turned Alphonse over to Mrs. Hughes after the young boy's relentless requests. He'd challenged Mr. Mitchell almost relentlessly to allow him to stay at the Hughes' residence, though he could certainly tell that the man was disheartened by the requests, Al knew that he needed to be away from the confines of that house and in an environment where he could move forward. It was a little unsettling, but Alphonse was unnerved by how little both Nina and the nurse had to say about the issue; it felt as though they were glad to see him go. Brigitte picked up that Al was leaving and promptly unpacked his bags the night he was to leave; much to everyone's dismay. She was escorted into the depths of the house somewhere in the midst of a frantic fit; it was the last time Al had seen her.

"I would request that you and Lt. Ross continue our investigation into Mrs. Curtis' disappearance, try and locate where that damned stubborn officer was relocated to and clear up his statements about her disappearance," snapping open his briefcase, Roy produced the envelope containing the case report and interviews.

His eyes widening, Armstrong took the report into his hand, "… Isn't this… what Lt. Havoc misplaced?"

Rolling his eyes, Havoc began to shake his head, "I knew you'd taken that… or you wouldn't have gotten me out of all that shit I wound up in."

"Keep a close eye on it for me," again smirking, Roy turned the grin upon Havoc, "make yourself a little more useful to me and see what you can find about the older child the Mitchell family adopted."

"Oh hey, speaking of that," Havoc took the cigarette from his mouth, "I still have that black bag with that photo equipment the runner from Communications left in the office. I know you said it wasn't yours, so I caught up with him asked why he thought it belonged to you. Apparently the girl you and Alphonse were with that day had been carrying it around on the floor, he thought she was your niece or daughter or something. But didn't you say that girl is staying with the Mitchell's?"

Al's eyes widened, "That's Brigitte's!" he turned up to Roy, "it's full of camera equipment. She lost it the day she ran into you."

"Oh, is that it?" Roy raised an eyebrow.

Havoc popped the cigarette between his teeth, "I don't know why she'd want to drag that around everywhere, it's like a lead weight."

Folding his arms curiously, Mustang glanced down to Alphonse, "Just photo equipment?"

"Mostly photo equipment. The Mitchell's nurse tore the bag apart in the family room the day she arrived; she dumped the equipment all over the floor then left in a huff after manhandling it. I think she might have broken some of it because Brigitte got really upset," Al looked off in thought as he tried to recall what had been inside, "there was a small white paper bag with some old 1800's photographs that the nurse went through. Um… there was a bunch of papers with someone's math problems on it, I don't know who's those were… a couple black boxes that held equipment pieces… um… a bag of powder that made everyone sneeze…"

Again the train bells sounded and the whistle from the train's front car drowned out all other noises.

Riza's hand came to Alphonse's shoulder as she motioned to the train steps, "We should take a seat."

"Havoc," Mustang narrowed his expression as he recalled the child from a week ago, "see if you can't use that bag as leverage somehow."

"I'll do my best to be sly and conniving like you, Chief," Havoc saluted.

Stepping up the stairs into the car, Al glanced back over his shoulder at the officers who'd remained to see him off. Taking his fast pace, Al finally ran into the train and spun into the private cabin Mustang had arranged, dumping his jacket and travel bag into the corner. Bouncing himself up onto the soft seat, Al put an elbow on the windowsill as he looked out onto the platform. His eyes continued to scan the platform while Roy and Riza sat down in their seats; he searched among the families, military officers and passengers preparing for the arrival of the next train but could not find who he'd hoped to spot.

"Why didn't Mrs. Hughes come to see us off?" Al glanced to the two officers; ill prepared to respond to the uneasy reactions he received.

Riza answered slowly, watching as Roy distanced himself from the question; snapping open the day's paper, "Superstition, I would guess."

Al again looked between the two before returning his attention out the window, wondering why it felt like a question he should not have asked.

* * *

"AH! Edward, thank you so much for letting me dress Winry up," Tilly's grin ran from ear to ear as she hung over the back of the couch in Edward's living room; her smile shifting between him and her husband, "some of my clothes look better on her than they do on me!"

"I'm afraid to see what you did with her," Ed narrowed an eye at the flamboyant woman while she clapped her hands.

"I don't understand why she wouldn't let me cut her hair; I don't know any girl who has her hair past her shoulders. She looked so strange with her hair down, so I pinned it up on the back of her head; she looked far better that way."

Ed glanced over to his father sitting on the chair at the corner of the room; peering over his paper, the old man adorned the same concerned expression as his son carried.

"Let me show you!" like a giddy child, Tilly spun on her toes and darted out of the room.

"I claim no responsibility for the things my wife does with your friend," Oberth said flatly, folding his arms.

"Yeah, well, I'm holding you responsible if I go to bed with a black eye tonight," Ed's hand came to his cheek at the thought. Rising to his knees upon the couch, Ed peered over the back as he heard the pairs of footsteps descending down the stairs.

"Don't look yet!" Tilly's voice screamed.

Ed ducked back down into his couch. Folding his arms he waited, he could hear them standing behind him and they were no longer moving because the footsteps had stopped.

"Okay!"

The two men at the couch, and the one pretending he was engrossed in the newspaper peered over to Winry. With a decorative hat on her head, Winry's hair had been curled and pinned to the back of her head. Her body stood draped in a pale green, sleeveless, straight-line dress with straps that pinched at the shoulders and a length that stretched long past her knees. Not even around her waist, but wrapped at her hips was a wide ribbon belt that was tied in a bow at the back. On her feet was a pair of silver, pointy-toed shoes with heels as thin as pins.

Ed blinked, raising an eyebrow, "Yeah, Winry does pull off your clothes better than you."

Hohenheim suddenly choked back a laugh, "Edward… if you're brave enough to say that in English, better say it in German so Tilly can understand you."

"What? I'm just saying it looks nice," he protested, momentarily switching to German for the other companions, "it looks good on her, Tilly."

The woman grinned, as though she had never had any doubt of that.

"It looks very nice, Winry," Hohenheim nodded, though he gave a cautious look when he caught the twitch in her eyebrow.

"Yeah, I've seen lots of girls wear those over the summer, it looks pretty good on you," Ed folded his arms over the back of the couch as he looked up at her.

"E-Ed…" carrying her sweetest sounding voice most graceful disposition, Winry's grin grew wide as she wobbled in the shoes, "it's hideous."

Edward tilted his head, frowning, "No, it looks alright."

"Ed," Winry fought to keep her voice as pleasant sounding as she could, "it has no waist line, there's a big bow on my backside, this tie feels like it's going to fall off my hips at any moment, it hangs off me like a rag; it is the most unflattering and **hideous** piece of cloth I have ever put on."

"Then change," Ed sunk back down in the couch, "I'm not going to stop you if you don't like it, but it looks fine."

"How can you sit there and say that! This isn't attractive at all; I won't believe you for a minute if you say this looks fine," glancing to Tilly quickly, Winry shuffled her way behind where Ed sat and crouched down; her chin resting on the back of the couch, "All the dresses look terrible like this. That woman was showing me pictures in the magazines when she was curling my hair; the things they wear are so uncomfortable and make them look years older. It's bad enough I didn't get a seventeenth birthday, now I look like I've skipped all the way up to twenty-five!"

"I can't do anything about that," he grumbled in frustration at Winry's displeasure, "I can't change what people want to wear. That's just the way it is, you're going to have to get use to it," it was becoming a phrase he'd use several times a day.

Her fingers digging into the back of the couch in frustration, Winry scowled down at him, "Since when were you such a pacifist? I just want a skirt like my old one. These are all itchy… they make me want to scratch my legs…"

"You can't wear something like what you had before, Winry," Hohenheim's paper came down into his lap; he would end the complaining and snapping threads of tension with a decisive blow, "you'd never be able to wear it in public, and men would get the wrong impression and think that you belonged to a bordello; you'd get taken advantage of."

Turning his petrified eyes quickly away, Ed gave thanks that it was his dad who'd said that and not him.

"Gah…" turning her downtrodden expression away from Hohenheim, Winry poked Ed to regain his attention, "Okay, so if I'm going to be forced to wear this uncomfortable getup, could… you ask your friend… if she can help fix… the top half of the dress?"

"What's wrong with the top half of the dress?" Ed titled his head in confusion of the question.

"It's uncomfortable," Winry's fingers ran over her shoulders.

"You need to tell me where it's uncomfortable, so I can tell Tilly how to tailor the dress."

"Please don't tell me you're that stupid! Couldn't you tell when I was standing there?"

"Winry," frowning sharply in frustration, Ed rose up to challenge her, "I do not know what is wrong with your dress!"

"It needs a _bra_, Ed."

With the flick of his wrists, Hohenheim brought the newspaper back up in front of himself and continued reading.

Ed found himself sunk into the cushions of the couch, staring forward into the unlit fireplace. A wrench upside his head would have done less damage than her statement did. He hoped he hadn't turned any shade of red and quickly touched the back of his hand to his face to make sure. This was becoming a conversation he'd _never _wanted to carry on with her.

"Ed…" Winry whined as she sunk to the floor, leaning up against the back of the couch, "please just ask her for me. I don't know how to ask, she's not wearing one, and I don't think anyone in the magazines had one on. I can't even point it out to her if I wanted to."

"Why didn't you need one before now?" the monotone question dropped from his mouth.

"I was hiding in your shirts and sweaters," her voice hoarsely whispered, "it's not like anyone was going to see me in public! Those Thule-whatever people took everything I was wearing before I got into that white thing."

Ed's hand slowly peeled over his face; his intuition was right, having Tilly over to dress Winry up was a bad idea, "Why did I have to know this Winry?"

"Who else did you want me to discuss this with? I'm not going to ask your dad."

"He's sitting in the room," Ed quickly side glanced over to his father who held the paper high in front of his face, "I'm sure he can hear you."

"Ed…"

Giving a reluctant sigh, Ed shook his head and took a deep breath as he looked over to the very concerned looking Tilly who'd come to sit on the arm of the couch next to her husband, "Winry wants to know if you have a bra for her."

"A what?" Tilly folded her arms as she frowned at the question, "what's that for?"

His expression collapsing, Ed wondered how he wound up in a conversation like this, "Um…"

"A brassier, Tilly," Hohenheim put the newspaper back down in his lap; Ed's uncomfortable eye twitched at the faint sound of annoyance he picked up in the man's voice.

"Oh…" she blinked at the enlightenment; "I don't think you can get those here. I saw some in a London fashion magazine, but I haven't seen them for sale anywhere."

Nodding slowly, Hohenheim glanced over towards his narrow eyed son and Winry hidden behind the back of the couch, "I didn't think she would be so lucky."

"She could wear a corset I guess… though, you're not really supposed to wear anything under the dress," Tilly tapped her chin in thought, "and corsets are for nicer dresses; this one's pretty simple, it just won't look right."

Ed paled as he shifted in the couch cushions, "I don't want to tell her that."

"Winry," Hohenheim's voice rose to draw her back to her feet, "I'm afraid you're not going to find something like that here."

Her cheek twitched a little as she looked on at Hohenheim; it was even more uncomfortable discussing this with an 'old man' than it was with Ed, "Why not…? Aren't there stores that sell them?"

"It's not something that's common place and is more of a fashion trend; Germany is a very poor country right now, I don't expect you'd find anything. Besides which, I've heard that they don't work very well, are somewhat uncomfortable, and will be nothing like what you're use to. If you're insecure about it, you can either tie yourself down or try out a corset like a lot of other women wear."

"_Why _do you know stuff like this?" Ed's voice squeaked, unable to disguise the discomfort he was having with his father's involvement in the conversation; his eye continued to twitch every time the man spoke up. Edward's question of his father was a welcome intrusion for Winry who remained silent and horrified at what she'd just been told and by who'd uttered it.

Hohenheim stood up from his chair and approached the couches around his coffee table, somewhat unimpressed; he was a little more worldly than his son was giving him credit for. Tossing the newspaper down, Hohenheim carried an expression conveying his general displeasure at Edward's lack of maturity in the last ten minutes, "There _are _some women in the University, Edward. When an American or British magazine shows up in the department I usually get the honour of translating it."

"Oh…"

"Besides which, you forget how old I am and how many years I was together with your mother…" Hohenheim narrowed his eyes, courting a slightly wicked thought for his uncomfortable son, "…buying clothes with your mother, doing laundry with your mother, sleeping in the same bed as your mother, doing 'adult things' with your mother. If you think that I don't know what Trisha wore under–"

It took Ed's mind a moment to crash before the blood-curdling scream tore out; the moment the sound emerged, Winry shrieked with laughter.

Both of Ed's hands suddenly shot out in front of his body, "That's enough, no more, I don't want to know ANYTHING about you and mom, EVER."

"Edward…"

"I don't even want to THINK about it…" Ed quickly flung himself to his feet and made his way around the couch, "this conversation is never coming up again."

"Ed!" Winry's voice perked as she hopped onto the back of the couch, "how old are you? Adults actually do discuss these sorts of things."

Ed's arms again flung into the air, "Yes, Winry, I know they do… but this is entirely different."

"How's that?" her lips curled up in amusement.

Turning an eye back to her, it twitched as he pushed the words out from between his teeth, "Because it involves _my _parents, and I . do . not . want . to . know ." Edward vanished from the room before Winry was able to take a deep enough breath to reply.

Tilly and Hermann exchanged glances before looking around the room uncertain of what just happened.

Hopping down from the back of the couch, Winry folded her arms as she frowned, "How does Ed think he was born?"

Snatching up the newspaper again, Hohenheim leaned back in the chair as he flipped through to find the page he'd left off at, "He better not think the stork brought him; he won't be too happy when I tell him how it actually happened."

It took a moment of silence to pass before Winry burst into a fit of giggles brought on by the old man's statement and scampered out of the room after Ed.

* * *

"Still holding?"

Havoc's forehead came down onto the desk, the phone pressed to his ear, "I'm still holding…"

Breda laughed, patting the top of the zippered black bag, "You're a lost and found service now."

"This sucks," Havoc whined, "I have a thousand other things to do than sit on hold waiting for the Prime Minister's call's to clear up."

"It'll be the same tomorrow and the day after too. You need a direct line like Hakuro," smirking at the thought, Breda hooked his index finger through the loop on the zipper and opened the bag, "did you even bother to look through all of it?"

"Most of it," Havoc sat up, watching as his friend peered inside, "looks like the camera my grandmother used."

Lifting the heart of the equipment out from the bag, Breda whistled, "Cripes, why would some little girl tote this around?"

"Beats me," Havoc returned to twirling the telephone receiver around by its cord, "someone should buy her a new one, I don't even think that thing takes pictures in colour."

Breda's arm reached into the bag; one by one, the Lieutenant began pulling out more of the pieces to be assembled into Brigitte's tripod, flash stand, and camera set up. A little white paper bag lay amongst the chaos. Setting a few square black boxes down, Breda opened each one to find much of the smaller pieces to be embedded into cloth-filled velvet-lined cases.

"She certainly took care of some of it," he admired as he shuffled the boxes on the desk.

Examining a heavier piece from one of the velvet-lined cases, Havoc's brow rose when he attempted to return the part only to find the cloth bed had a hard spot. Poking at it, Havoc lifted the velvet layer away to see what was mixed into the soft bed. Between his thumb and index finger, Havoc pulled out a child sized hide wallet.

"Interesting," Breda snatched away the brown and dusty wallet "I wonder what girls keep in their wallets now-a-days."

"Breda…" Havoc rolled his eyes.

"What? My sister use to write love notes and keep them there, they were priceless," a malicious smile grew across his face as the officer started to investigate the contents, "if she's got the wallet stored away like that, then I bet there's something good inside."

"Mustang said that the girl doesn't even speak normally, how do you expect… her…" Havoc's voice trailed off as he caught the receiver in his hand, "what?"

Placing the wallet down, Breda slid a scrap piece of paper towards his companion, "What the hell does that say?" he pointed to the hand written note that caused Havoc to straighten in his chair.

Taking the paper in his hand, Havoc leaned back in the chair as he tried to decipher the mostly English looking letters into some coherent form, "… Well, they did say she made up her own language… maybe she writes that way too?"

Removing the paper from Havoc's fingers, Breda opened a card that had been folded in half and placed it into the Lieutenant's hands, "Yeah, and this one is typed."

"'The hell…?" Havoc's eyes scanned the document, repeatedly, while Breda continued pulling out untranslatable objects: train ticket stubs, store receipts, hand written notes, postage stamps, German bills and coins…

"Looks like this is an information card of some sort," Havoc placed the document down, "that's the top line has the girl's name in it. How the heck do you pronounce this? Shmittenhelm?"

Setting the wallet down, Breda dumped the coins in his hand onto the table, "I've been stationed in some pretty remote places but I've never seen coins like this."

Havoc's finger came to rest at a date on the card, "That 1908 date had better not be her birthday… she's a hell of a lot older than that."

"What the hell is that warped looking B?" Breda's eyes narrowed as he spun the card around.

The moment Havoc lost possession of the card, he stood up from the desk and began to clear the remaining contents from the bag, balancing the phone receiver on his shoulder as he did so, "Breda, see if you can't find a manufacturer's label on some of this stuff."

"Woah, Havoc," from within the wallet, Breda snapped out a folded sheet of white paper. Havoc watched wide eyed as his companion placed a sheet littered with hand-drawn alchemical circles down on the table, "… Did Alphonse make this for her?"

His eyes examining the creased piece of paper, Havoc slowly shook his head with uncertainty, "You'd have to ask him…"

Setting the paper aside, Breda began transferring the equipment off the desk as he examined each piece for some indication of its origin. In turn, Havoc's hands dove into the bag, patting down the inside before opening a zipper and pulling out paperwork. He dumped the papers across the table, most of which resembled unfinished math homework.

"… This is making no sense," Havoc sank back into the chair as he scanned the confusion laid out before him. Taking the paper bag from the table, the Lieutenant shook the contents out into his hand and unwound the elastic surrounding the bundle. Photographs, nothing but black and white photographs. Black and white photographs of countryside scenery, structures that seemed hundreds of years old, people in clothing that people in his grandmother's generation had worn… Havoc wondered how old the images were.

"Good Afternoon, Prime Minister Mitchell's office, are you still holding?"

The sudden voice startled Havoc and he fumbled the contents onto the floor; he scrambled to attach the phone to his ear while bending down to pick up the images, "Yes, I'm still holding." To add insult to injury, the small paper bag tipped off the edge of the desk and tumbled off Havoc's head to the mess.

"Were you holding for Prime Minister Mitchell or General Hakuro?" the sweet little voice piped.

Pulling the paper bag open with the intention of putting everything away, Havoc wrapped the cord around his arm so the receiver would stop slipping, "I didn't realize this was a dual line."

"The Prime Minister and the General have been in conference all day…"

Curiously, Havoc squinted an eye into the paper bag.

"… calls for both men have been redirected to this line."

Havoc flicked the paper bag, "There's something stuck in there."

"Pardon me?"

Reaching his finger in, he pulled the photograph off the inside of the bag; the image side stuck to bag by the thumbprints that had handled the snapshot on the day peanut butter and strawberry jam had been served for lunch at school.

"Sorry, I said that explains why I waited so long for the Prime Minister."

"I can put you directly through to the Minister now if you wish?"

Havoc shook the single photograph out from the bag, "That would be l-"

Breda turned his attention away from his task, perplexed by the sudden silence Havoc had entered.

"Sir, what was that?"

Gazing over the desk, Breda looked down to the officer upon his knees, "Havoc?"

"I'll call back," Havoc's hand blindly slammed the phone down.

Narrowing his eyes at the sudden disconnection, Breda questioned the Lieutenant as he rose to his feet, "You were on hold for nearly an hour… what was that for?"

Straightening the mess of photographs now in his hand, Havoc nonsensical tone had vanished, "Do you suppose they've passed through Xenotime yet?"

Glancing to the clock, Breda raised a single eyebrow, "We just missed them."

"Shit, I'll have to leave a message at the hotel," Havoc's expression dawned a grave seriousness as his hand darted into his pocket, "they have to get on the next train back to Central."

"What? Why?"

With the flick of his thumb, Havoc set the solitary photograph down on top of the entire menagerie.

* * *

"What is she doing?" Albrecht scratched the back of his head, sorting through the growing confusion around why Winry, still dressed in her long brown coat, black high-heeled boots, and bucket hat was sitting on the table, rather than in the chair.

"Winry!" Ed's English called to her, "get off the table and sit like a lady."

The slits of Winry's eyes glared over to Ed, "What did you just say?"

"Girls don't sit on the tables, they sit in chairs. You have to act…" Ed sweatdropped, scratching his cheek at the statement he was making, "dainty around people."

"Dainty?" the word disgusted her; not that she didn't believe girls should act dainty at times, but just the idea that it was Ed of all people telling her this, "I'm in an engineering workshop, I should be in overalls, not stiletto boots."

It was supposed to be a secluded venture; Ed taking Winry into the engineering lab during the 7:30am to noon lecture blocks. He'd literally snuck her in, uncertain how the dean, program chair, or any of the other higher level teachers and executives would react to his attempt to bring a female into the engineering labs. He'd taken the keys from his father, who'd reluctantly borrowed the keys from an associate; the labs were never used during lecture hours.

Just before 9am, the locked door to the lab had opened. Nearly killing Ed with fear, he'd been momentarily relieved to see that his guests were Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess… escorted by his father. Ed came to learn that Hess had been late for class and spotted them. He'd approached Hohenheim in Karl Haushofer's office after class had let out, and though Karl himself had a lecture, Hohenheim found himself with little choice but to take the other two men to visit.

The moment the men had entered the room, Winry put her long and wrapping light brown jacket back on, refusing to let anyone stare her in the hideous dress. She promptly returned to sitting on the table, where she had been while stripping the wire's she'd use to thread into Ed's somewhat broken hand, continually examining the AutoMail documentation.

Ed's hand came over his forehead at her behaviour; the two men laughed at the scenario that had gone on in a language they could not understand.

"She seems brave and has character. You know what Ed," Albrecht grinned, "you should let me take Winry-Goddess out to dinner."

Hess laughed at the way Albrecht phrased her name.

"… No," Edward replied flatly.

"Oh come on," Albrecht coaxed, "I'm studying English, it would give me a chance to have someone to practice with. Besides, not too many guys get to walk around town with a girl who looks that nice."

Ed cleared his throat, "No."

"I think Edward is being a bit over protective," Hess smirked, his voice playing with devilish undertones, "either that or he's selfish and doesn't want to share the wealth."

"You're disgusting Rudolf," Edward's flat response only made his company laugh more. Ed shot a vicious glare over to his father who deliberately paid no attention to the scenario.

Albrecht's hand came to rest on Ed's shoulder, a sly grin on his face, "You keep saying it: she's not your girlfriend, so you have no reason to object to me taking her out for dinner."

"Albrecht…" Ed's eyes narrowed as he heard Hess's voice laugh.

"I think you're making him mad, Albrecht, he didn't call you 'Hoffie'."

"… last time I checked _you _had a girlfriend."

Albrecht's lips curled up in amusement as the hand that once rested on the shoulder now wrapped around Ed's neck with a deliberately devious laugh, "… So?"

Ed let loose a disgruntled sigh, shoving the arm away, "Yeah, well unfortunately Winry's going back home soon, so you'd better not get too attached to her," he continued to re-draw the line between the German men and Winry.

"That's right," Hohenheim braced himself as he stepped into the conversation, "Edward and Winry are heading back to England right away."

"I'm what?" Ed blinked over to his father.

The two men turned, raising their eyebrows at the statement, "Really? How soon?"

Nodding affirmatively, Hohenheim advanced the conversation around the dumbfounded son he'd created, "Winry needs to visit her parents and Edward offered to take her on the trip. I don't think she'll be traveling alone after what's happened."

"… I did what? I'm what?" Ed's flat tongue switched to English, picking up Winry's attention.

"That's such a shame," Hess' expression fell sharply, "we're organizing a get together to celebrate Adolf's release soon. I'd hoped the both of you would be in attendance. When is everyone departing?"

Sitting back upon her knees, Winry's hand came to her chin as she glared down at the pieces of paper before her.

Frowning, Hohenheim acted out his finest disappointment with a sigh, "If I remember right, they depart a few days before Adolf's release."

"What the hell…" Ed's words fell slowly, bitterly and meticulously off his lips, again snagging up the unimpressed gaze Winry held.

"That's disappointing. For all the trouble that there was, Adolf told me he owed Edward a tall glass of 'Marianna's Finest' red wine."

"… do you think…"

It was an unexpected swell of alarming concern that took over Hohenheim's voice, "He what…?"

"… YOU ARE DOING?" Ed's fist came crashing down onto the counter.

"Shut up, Ed!" Winry barked as she traced her fingers over the schematics again.

Exchanging a concerned glance with Albrecht, Hess stumbled through his sentence while his eyes darted from the sudden outburst from Winry, louder English outburst from Ed and the sudden concern from Hohenheim, "He wanted to treat Edward to some drinks as an apology."

Hohenheim's hand came up into Edward's face before the younger could continue his ranting, "No, that's not what I'm asking, I-"

Ed slapped his father's hand away, "I am NOT taking Winry to London."

"Ohhh… dear," Winry's fist came to her mouth, her eyebrows knotting together as she sat on her knees upon the table mulling over what she'd suddenly come to realize within Ed's AutoMail documentation.

"I didn't think you were stupid enough to think I'd been KIDDING when I said there was no way in HELL I'd-"

The room of men gave a collective yelp; in the blink of an eye Ed was down on his knees, forehead to the ground and hands clasped over his head. No one had seen what struck Edward in the side of the head, but wary male eyes turned horrified expressions over to the cross look Winry carried.

"What the hell is wrong with you Winry?" Ed screeched, never having any doubt who rattled a screwdriver off his skull.

"Stop yelling at your dad like a banshee!" she screamed back; with the exception of Edward, the men within the room paled at her vicious sounding retort. Winry's finger shot to the chair while her facial expression emitted ferocious repercussions if he didn't, "sit yourself down in this chair and _shut up._"

Bitterly tossing the screwdriver across the floor, Ed got to his feet. Much to the surprise of Hohenheim, his son scowled his way over to the indicated seat.

"You're screaming over London again like some spoiled brat. What would you do if I wanted you to take me to London?" Winry turned her nose to the air as she slid off the table, the two entering into their own little world to be watched by observant eyes.

"Has that stupid old man been talking to you about London?" Ed bit back as he sat down sharply.

"Yes," the palm of Winry's hand came down between Ed's shoulder blades as she thrust him violently against the table's edge, "and don't talk about your sweet old daddy that way," sitting down on the table top again, Winry took the 1mm pins and stripped wires she'd been toying with and began to thread his fingers like a master seamstress, "and he said that they speak English in London, so I don't know why we're still here when we could be there."

"And the Thule hall and transmutation circle are here."

"And just like you said, the hall and circle are not going anywhere or doing anything," a malicious curl came across her lips as she spoke through a toothy grin, "I think that you, your daddy, and I should go to London."

"Then the two of you can go, I don't care what you do," he scowled back to challenge her deliberate attempt to piss him off further.

Sliding off the table, Winry slammed his hand down and issued her bitter instructions, "Unbutton your shirt, I need your shoulder."

Oblivious to the silent observation the horrified men placed her under; Winry unlatched the jacket at her hip and dropped it in a heap on the floor. Popping the pins that kept her hip-band from falling off, she discarded the oversized belt and bow that annoyed her so much, kicking it into the jacket when it fell easily from her body. Snatching up scissors from the countertop, Winry unwound a double-arm length of red wire and snipped it from the wooden roll. Firmly tying the wire around her waist, she pulled the dress up above her knees before crouching down to unlace the boots. Kicking the uncomfortable high-heeled pin-pegs she's been balancing on into the pile of clothing, Winry swept up the triangle tool key from the shelf and notched the flathead corner between her index and middle fingers. Storming over to Edward, Winry whipped a chair around next to where he sat and promptly came to stand on the seat.

"You know what Ed," he choked when her kneecap unexpectedly came down between his shoulder blades. Holding him against the table as she shifted a great deal of weight to pin him down, Winry's bitter smirk curled, "I was looking over your AutoMail notes a couple of minutes ago and I realized that I had missed something when I was thinking about getting your fingers going," her left hand gripping Ed where his flesh became metal, she locked the driver head into the main notch at the back of his mechanical shoulder, "it's easy, now that the wires are replaced, all I have to do is reestablish the current flow in your hand, then your fingers will regain their movement," with the sharp twist of her wrist, Winry spun the notch counter clockwise. Eyebrows rose as Ed's head suddenly perked at her actions, but shivers tore down the spines of the observant men moments after. Re-gripping the key, she wrenched the notch around in a full clockwise circle. Winry's hand moved to press Ed's forehead into the table as he ripped out an excruciating scream at a merciless feeling he had not been prepared for.

Detaching, and then tossing the tool down onto the desk next to Edward's head, Winry hopped down from her perch and dusted her hands off before slapping them down on her hips. Turning a narrowed gaze towards the two German men who stood mortified at her behaviour, Winry simply scowled back at them before marching around the table to peer down at the limp body of Edward; entangled in his own sweat and heavy breathing as he fought through the shock.

"But I didn't realize that I had to disconnect and reconnect the entire nervous system flow of your whole arm to do that."

"You…" his voice shaky, a pained and unsteady eye opened to look up at her.

Lacing her fingers together, Winry tucked her hands under her chin as she smiled sweetly down at his horrid discomfort.

"It's fixed now."

* * *

It was a dual set of watchful eyes that remained peering down the platform, and though when one would sigh in displeasure and return to looking off into the wilderness beyond the train tracks, the other continued vigilance.

Roy's hand slapped over his face while his head rolled uncomfortably over the back of the bench, "Major, how long has it been?"

"Ten minutes since the last time you asked, Sir."

"Dammit…"

Riza's watchful eye held observation over Alphonse down the platform while he picked and chose from the family cookery, "Should we join young Alphonse, Sir?" her eyebrow rose in thought, "we haven't eaten since this morning and it's almost dinner hour."

"When I see smoke rising from that engine car," Roy's melancholy voice droned out, "then I'll be hungry."

They'd sat there for hours. The train into Xenotime had gotten them there with time to spare, but the connecting train out on track two was yet to receive clearance for departure. The next station, six hours away, had yet to relay an okay. Twenty minutes after the initial denial of clearance due to weather, the phone lines into the city and station had been severed.

Roy's nose curled in displeasure, he could see it in the east, the towering storm clouds that billowed up into the far reaches of the sky, stretching from one end of the distant horizon to the other. If any of the valleys that surrounded the town had washed out, not only were the phone lines inoperative, but the train would not be able to pass.

Despite her cranky superior's doldrums, Riza rose to her feet, brushed her beige skirt smooth, and wandered in Alphonse's direction without another word to draw along the man's misery.

"The cinnamon buns are really good!" Al piped; his arms folded over the edge of the counter, his chin resting in them while he sat in a chair at the elder baker's stand.

"I have fresh soup buns that'll be ready in about five minutes," the old man brimmed with amusement at Alphonse's continued appetite for his baking, "did you want some soup and buns after the cinnamon rolls?"

Al gave a vigorous nod as he popped the remainder of the cinnamon bun into his mouth.

"It's good I take it?" Al had this magic touch on her that even Roy could not explain; though he did not disapprove of it. It had shown up on the train ride, the sudden absence of her military tone that she used even with her dog. But this, she used it in conversation with Alphonse and found that he was much more receptive to that type of behaviour. It was as though Al's will would easily bend to a warm female voice.

Swallowing his last bite with a nod, Al grinned his childish smile up to her as Riza pulled a chair up.

"So what are we eating?" her voice mused over Al's enjoyment.

"Mister," Al picked his head up from the lazy position he'd held, "what kind of soup is it?"

"Cream chicken is alright young man?" the elder voice called out from within the kitchen.

Al's eyes turned over to Riza, "Is that alright?"

"Its fine, Sir, thank you," she called out, clasping her hands over the handbag resting in her lap.

Turning over the back of his chair, Al gazed down the platform scattered with tired, waiting and generally impatient travelers, his eyes caught Mustang lounging with disgust on the wooden bench.

"Is the General going to join us?"

Turning her gaze in the same direction, Riza simply rolled her eyes at the stubborn man, "Brigadier General," she wasn't used to having correct Al's recognition of ranks, "and no, I doubt he is. He's sulking."

Al knew why, the cranky officer had been grumbling about it for hours; and though Al had finally gone off to entertain himself elsewhere, he was still curious, "Ma'am, are we ever going to get to leave? I'll end up using all of my money on cinnamon rolls if we don't go soon," he wiped his fingers off in a napkin.

"You can call me Riza, Alphonse, I don't mind. You're not military personnel."

Al gave an uncomfortable shrug at the suggestion, "Winry always called you Miss. Hawkeye or Lieutenant Hawkeye or something like that. Everyone in Central calls you 'Ma'am' or 'Sir' or 'Major'. It sounds funny any other way."

Raising her eyebrows in recognition of the problem, she added to the thought, "You know, I told Winry to call me Riza, and she didn't take to it well either. It sounds too formal hearing people younger than myself who do not have to address me as 'Ma'am' say it. It makes me feel old."

The question was innocent enough, "How old are you?"

"Alphonse," the military tone smacked him over the head, "it's rude to ask a woman her age," and as quickly as the voice had blindsided him into retracting the statement, Riza's casual tone added, "not old enough for you to call me 'Ma'am'."

"Excuse me?"

The interruption was not directed at anyone per say, but the timid call from the little boy's voice received not only the attention of the elder baker, but Alphonse and Riza as well.

"I'm sorry," the boy fiddled with his fingers, "I'm wondering if you can tell me if a gentleman has stopped by your stand?"

"Of course," the elder baker placed his tray of newly baked buns on the ledge.

"I'm looking for a man with an eye patch…"

Riza's disposition dropped away as her suspicion and curiosity took over; she tried to glance down the platform but the crowd of people looking to board the next train back to Central had become too dense. She turned her attention over to Alphonse who kept his curious eyes on the boy.

"… he's got short black hair, average height. He's traveling with a blonde woman and a boy a bit taller than me."

The baker slowly shook his head, "I'm sorry young man, I can't say that I've served anyone with an eye patch."

"Why are you searching for a man with an eye patch?" Riza tried to keep her inquisition from sounding too powerful.

Giving a sigh, the boy looked back over his shoulder, "I have a very important message I'm supposed to relay. And I need to find them before the train to Central leaves."

"Why the Central train?" Al joined in the curious train of thought the pair stewed in.

"Woah…" the sudden wide-eyed look Al was given stalled their conversation. The boy slowly turned his full attention over to Alphonse while Riza began to rise up from her seat with uncertain alarm for the reaction.

"You're…" the boy's voice sounded lost in wonder, "Is that what she meant?"

"At ease, Major."

Roy's voice took hold of everyone present. Attentions spun around to the stern expression on the officer's face as the young man standing tall next to him approached the trio.

"You found him!" the little boy's voice squeaked in delight.

"Sure did," without loosing pace, the elder came to crouch next to Alphonse's seat, his whimsical look of curiosity examined the Elric boy, "you know, Mugear told us that both Elric brothers had gold eyes. Guess the old fool never did know what he was talking about."

Al leaned away in his seat, caught surprised and off guard by the sudden revelation that this person recognized who he was.

"She was right," the young man exhaled a laugh, looking into Alphonse's obviously unnerved reaction "you don't look anything like Ed. You're sitting down and you still look taller than he ever was."

The younger of the two boys folded his childish arms, "You're going to get in trouble if you keep that up."

"Sir?" Riza had come to her feet, a startled aura of concern wrapped around the situation.

Roy simply waved a dismissive hand, his voice much calmer than the looks carried by his other two traveling companions, "It's alright Major."

For Riza, this was not okay; even if she completely trusted her superior's words, the situation was too serious for her not to know, "Who are these boys?"

With the growth of a charismatic smirk, and the presentation of a strong hand for her to shake, the elder of the two boys introduced himself, "Russell Tlingum, Miss. Major."

"Tlingum…?" her eyes shot over to Mustang whose visual reaction never wavered at the mention of the name. Not since she'd first begun to serve under Mustang's command had she heard that surname.

"That's my little brother," realizing the major would not take his hand; he clenched his fist and with the flick of his thumb, motioned to the younger boy who beamed proudly, "Fletcher."

Glancing between the hardened and serious look Mustang carried and the gravely concerned look his subordinate carried, Al's voice barely found its way out, "I don't… know the name."

"We were told to expect that, and you know what, that's good!" Russell's amused smirk never vanished as he looked on, entertained by Alphonse's confusion, "we've pulled some stupid stunts with you and your brother, everyone's better off if we forget it ever happened."

The tense aura was blown away by the steam whistle of the train Mustang and his companions did not realize they were waiting for.

With the snap of his fingers, Russell pointed to the boarding party line up, "That's your train, and you better get on it."

The seriousness in Mustang's expression lifted at the incorrect statement, "No, we're heading east."

"No you're not," the overconfident attitude Russell carried rubbed Mustang the wrong way until the boy's playful demeanour swept away without warning, "I told you, we have a message to relay. From Lieutenant Jean Havoc, VIA Lieutenant Maria Ross, and relayed by us: you three need to get back to Central City. Now."

**

* * *

**

To Be Continued...

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Author's Notes

You all want to see what Winry looks like, ya? Here's some art to help you visualize what you're reading! (don't forget to put that URL together without spaces!) www . livejournal . com / users / yuuki / 72669 . html

I think Russell and Fletcher will be fun to write too... XD poor Mustang...

Mugear is how the name is spelt on the Aniplex site.

_'Why didn't Gracia see Al off?' _Think about what happened the last time Gracia saw someone off at a train station.

**Previous Chapter Comments**

http:/ yuuki(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)110290(dot)html


	15. Façade

**He Who Searches For Himself**

_

* * *

_

It was the horizon never to be forgotten; a bed which, night after night, the sun would lay down upon. It was the holder of many daydreams. Even on the cloudiest and darkest of nights, there would always be something distinct to this existence of peace in an unsettled world that made it their own. It was intangible and indescribable, but the only description needed past the four o'clock hour would be 'Rizembool's western horizon'; enough would be said.

_"Mommy. How come over there the clouds are so big and there are none over here? How come they're grey on the bottom?"_

_Trisha's arms enveloped her youngest son, "Alphonse, do you remember what happened to my dishcloth when I hung it out on the line?"_

_"Sorta…"_

_"Remember when we took it off the line, the bottom part of the rag was wet but the top was dry?"_

_Al nodded slowly._

_"That's why the cloud is only grey on the bottom, because the cloud is hanging from the clothes line in the sky. The bottom part of the cloud is still really wet like my rag, but the top is dry, so it's white like all the other clouds."_

_"Ohhh…" it was such simple enlightenment that explained so much of this unknown world._

_Trisha's soft voice carried like the breeze; light weight and carefree, "and you know how if my rag is really soggy at the end it drips onto the grass? That's the same thing that happens to the cloud. When the cloud is really grey it drips onto the grass because it's soggy, and that's how it rains."_

_"Ohhhh…" for young Alphonse, the world made so much more sense today._

_Trisha ran her fingers through his hair, pleased with herself that she'd unravelled one of life's many mysteries today._

**

* * *

**

Chapter 66 - Façade

* * *

Winry stood, immersed in a pungent yellow glow. It neither welcomed nor rejected her.

Her voice called out, and it was sucked into the unending abyss.

_"She said 'I wonder who'll help that remaining Elric child if you continue to sit there afraid?'"  
_  
Leaving a coin on the shadowless floor, Winry sprinted away and ran until her lungs forced her to stop. Crouching over, hands to her kneecaps, her eyes widened as the coin lay at her feet once again. It was unmistakably silver, yet it carried no shine and no reflection. Clenching it within her hand, Winry threw it across the glowing expanse.

_"Tucker performed a partially successful human transmutation. He recreated the mind and body of Nina. But that's all there was. It didn't live in a conscious state because it lacked a soul; something Tucker must not have been able to provide, even if he thought he could."  
_  
A child giggled.

Winry looked around; she remained alone. Unlike her voice, this one echoed. And it came again, with friends, they all giggled. Winry's feet crossed over, spinning in circles as she tried to find the source of the giggling that encompassed her.

It laughed at her.

_"If Nina did regain some resemblance of a soul, it's probably corrupt. If someone helped Tucker insert a soul into Nina, he or she would easily have been able to influence the information. With Tucker's mental state being what it is, he probably wouldn't notice…"  
_  
Her voice called out, demanding to know who was there. It simply laughed at her. The sound grew louder; it echoed in her mind, pulsed through her body, encompassed her soul.

She screamed for the insidious noise to either stop or show itself.

It did both, and Winry wished she'd never asked.

_"I wish you'd been able to see who clapped their hands together. The only people who could clap their hands for the alchemical circle are myself, my dad, Sensei and Dante. I don't think there's anyone else out there who can. I've never heard of anyone who fits this nurse's description."  
_  
It towered over her, claiming her existence without ever opening its gates. She could feel it, a perfect understanding of what was going on, yet she was unable to pick out any particular piece of the wealth forced upon her. The dark gate doors remained closed as trembling eyes slowly drew towards it.

The infant's shrill cry was as haunting, if not worse, than the laughter that obviously had known what was coming.

"… Diana?"

_"Dante was someone my father knew much better than I ever did. You said earlier that Roze couldn't remember much about Lyra, but that's because Lyra was Dante. Dante was manipulating societies, cities, peoples, and individuals for her own benefit. Roze was one of them."  
_  
There were no words that could explain the moments of complete understanding.

The doors swung open, their hinges creaking in pain as the darkness of beyond reared its ugly head. From the depths, multitudes of eyes lecherously peered back at her. She couldn't move. She could barely breathe, let alone move. But nothing happened. She simply stared into the horror that waited for her with open arms.

She looked up again; it was that child's fault. The child brought order to what felt like uncertain chaos.

_"Lyra's body should be about ready to give out. The Lyra shell was rotting away very quickly; she'd need a new host in order to live. But in order to do that, she'd need the Philosopher's Stone."  
_  
It was a crossing found deeper than hell, absorbed with more wisdom and knowledge than she could have ever dreamed of. So, why was all this found at the entrance and exit of here and there? The baby knew.

She'd never heard that term used before, she had no idea who or what Tartarus was… but the baby knew. Somewhere in the infant's subconscious, Winry could feel how the baby likened this place to it. There was no explaining how the baby, who could only cry, knew so much.

_"Dante'd used the last of her stone to transfer into Lyra, and the new stone was used up when Al brought me back. She doesn't have the resources or time to create a new stone so she can keep on living. She should die off, if she hasn't done so already."  
_  
Winry climbed the stairs and stood before the black chamber. The understanding of her surroundings suppressed all fear she had for the looming gate.

The prying eyes vanished.

Extending her arm towards what lay beyond the gate, her fingers touched the darkness only to realize the void was solid… somewhat. At first she thought she would have been able to step through, but stability existed at the grace of another.

This was Diana's fault.

_"Ed… you need the Philosopher's Stone to create a hermaphrodite, right?"  
_  
Winry pushed her hand against the black abyss and watched as it sunk in. It was like reaching into cold tar; yet, she pulled her hand out cleanly.

This was crazy.

A new voice emerged, above and beyond the sound of the howling baby Winry had tuned out. It screamed. She stepped away from the boundary, and looked into the light once again. This sound was external; it did not vibrate within her existence like everything else.

Where was it coming from?

_"Winry, is there a reason you keep bringing this up? It's not like you to care about alchemy, let alone something so weird."  
_  
A cold pair of hands grabbed her legs; Winry froze in panic. A demon beyond the gate summoned her.

How could she even breathe in that? Her imagination ran in place of the legs that could not: what it would feel like to suffocate. To gasp solely as a reaction to living, only to have your lungs fill with a muddy fluid each time she inhaled. She didn't want to know what it would feel like to beg for air and never receive it. She didn't want to know what it would feel like to choke on the sludge or how much it might hurt. She didn't want to know what her last thought would be when her body would stop living.

A hand came from the darkness and grabbed her by her right shoulder. Someone spoke her name.

Winry screamed and took the only thing she could into her left hand and cranked her handler over the head, watching in delirium as he fell to the ground.

"Ah…" Winry blinked, glancing around in confusion, "ah… sorry… er…" she momentarily forgot everything Ed had told her. What was that German saying for 'I'm sorry' again?

"Es tut mir Leid!"

"Verzeihung," Hohenheim corrected her, his voice monotone from the startling reaction, "you should be asking for Albrecht's forgiveness… I don't think a general apology is going to suffice…"

Standing next to his father, Edward stared down with some hint of concern at Albrecht laying cross-eyed on the floor. Ed had warned him not to approach Winry from behind; especially if she was concentrating so hard she didn't answer their calls.

Winry blinked again, turning her wide eyed and dazed expression to the pliers in her hand.

* * *

Mustang's elbow rested in the window, the wind licking at the sides of his hair yet swirling back around so that it would continually tease his face. Occasionally he'd brush it aside, but for the most part he didn't pay much mind to it; he was listening.

"Like I said before, she didn't say much else," Russell's hands clasped behind his head, "just said that it was urgent and you should get back as soon as possible. The Lieutenant didn't offer much else up other than that. We were lucky it seems, we'd planned on taking the next train out there after you."

Riza's attention was focused on her task, though she took a moment to give a quick glance at the eldest in their group before replying to Russell, "As far as Central is aware, we're long departed for the east. Why send messengers out when they could simply have contacted the lodge we should be at?"

"I got the impression they'd already tried. We were their last hope it seems," managing to cross one leg over the other in the cramped seating arrangement, Russell rattled his fingers off the window in thought, "the telephone line was terrible too, she probably tried for a while to get through."

Leaning to get a better view out the window, Alphonse's gaze traveled out to the east. He pressed his forehead against the window's glass, his eyes held a lazy vigil of what lay in the beyond, "That sky still looks miserable…"

Roy sighed, straightening himself in his seat, "If the station attendants can't get through for a track clearance, I doubt that lines from Central could either."

The ensuing silence was uneasy, and it was Fletcher who broke in, "Thank you for taking us with you, we didn't think we'd end up actually coming along."

Roy flicked his lazy thumb over to Alphonse who smiled sheepishly at the gesture.

"You're involved. You did say Lt. Ross said you're to make sure we find our way back to Central," Al rubbed the back of his head with a giggle, "we couldn't just say thanks and leave you there."

Fletcher shook his head, "We haven't left town since the last time we were in Central. Things have probably changed a fair bit, especially with the Drachma uprising. They've really started to come in through the north and into the east."

Diverting her attention for a moment, Riza glanced over to the children, "You boys said at the station that you were looking to head either west or south, possibly into Central?"

The brothers nodded in tandem at the statement, but it was Russell who spoke for both, "I don't know how much is being told around your parts, but obviously the government isn't giving much care to what's going on out here."

Ishibal. One couldn't go any farther east than that, and it had been Drachma's last major strike. Even with the new troop deployment, they'd still been over run. The city was in ruins again, even if the government-controlled media didn't report it as such; both officers knew the implications of the reports that had been slipped into the office. Roy rolled his one good eye; he had a few choice words to say about this new parliament and how both it and the military were being run.

"Why don't you come out to Rizembool," Al perked, "it's still in the east, but not as far and much further south. It's quiet and full of open spaces."

"Do they have horses?"

"Oh yeah," Al nodded vigorously at Fletcher's question, "there's a lady just beyond the sunrise hill that raises them on her ranch."

Fletcher turned his entertained look from Alphonse over to his brother, "We should see about visiting Rizembool. It would be nice to get away from a big city life for a while, right?"

Russell started to laugh, "I told you this would turn out to be interesting. I just hope it's alright that we're doing this," the laugh curled into a smirk as he redirected his interests, "Mustang…"

Roy rolled his eye again, for the entire trip the boy hadn't bothered to attach either 'Brigadier General' or even 'Mister' to his name.

"… Your people aren't going to get mad over this, are they?"

Glancing the young man's way, Roy's voice carried no doubt in the decision, "They won't be."

The left hand had no idea what its right hand was doing. There was no way Roy would be able to inform anyone in his office of what lay ahead. No matter how many times he attempted to call, no one picked up and that was only when he could connect. Not Havoc, not Armstrong, not even the telegraph desk could be reached. He could barely get a line into Central at all.

What the Tlingum boys were able to provide for information shed no light onto why they were supposed to return to Central, other than it was of the utmost importance. Maria Ross had cut her conversation short with the boys, relaying explicit instructions that they were supposed to follow through on. But there was no way of reaching Central to acknowledge that the message had been received.

Riza's voice was low, keeping the sound below the range of sharp, childish ears, "Sir?"

"I know what you're going to say, and you don't need to," it was nice to have the wind blowing in through the window, since it helped mask his replies.

Riza did not say a thing, simply returning her attention to a clear focus on the journey ahead.

"Call it intuition," Roy mumbled, taking Riza's ears under his command once more, "there was something wrong with how it came to pass. I don't appreciate ultimatums being shoved down my throat."

Riza again took a moment to take in the man's presence, as he held steadfast in a belief that allowed his decision to pass.

"There's a reason I have no objection to Lieutenant Havoc sitting in my chair."

Roy's gaze flickered over to hers, snatching it up for just long enough to remind her of what that reason was.

"I still have one good eye, I can see quite clearly with it."

Both out of uniform officers glanced momentarily over their shoulders to the children who chattered in the back seats.

The frustrations at the station had mounted when the final train to Central had been announced. The initial train Russell and Fletcher had wanted the trio to get on had been full. They'd been herded like cattle onto the next train that had arrived so soon after the first. Everyone had been.

This was to be the last train to Central.

This was the last train out of the station in any direction. Every ticket-bearing passenger was to board and be re-routed at the capital. There'd been no reason given why the remaining tracks would not be used. Not even a train to the north or to the south would depart.

The only choice weary travelers were given was a return to Central.

If it had not been for a cascading series of events that were forcing the officer to return to Central, Mustang would never have torn up their tickets.

The clatter of rain began to sound above everyone's heads and the officers returned to facing the road ahead. Roy rolled up his window as Riza flicked on the windshield wipers; her hand re-gripped the steering wheel as she took the car into the storm beating down on their eastern destination.

* * *

"And that schematic works through the liquid fuel injection in the rocket. So, in theory, it'll take only a few minutes to shoot someone out of the stratosphere."

Winry 's eyes followed Ed's finger as he pointed up to the science lab ceiling, "… I think you said 'theory' maybe seven times Ed…"

"I know," his hand came up and brushed through his bangs.

Winry began to laugh nervously, "And… tell me again how long it will take us to get up there to find out if we can go home that way or not?"

"About fifty years…"

The deflated sigh came simultaneously as the two folded their arms and returned to leaning over the paperwork spread out on the lab tables.

"Okay… so we started this explanation of flight off by taking me to the Munich air fields and showing me these incredible devices called 'air planes' that fly around in the sky. You wormed your way into some blue prints for me to look at and keep, which I will forever be indebted to you for," the endearing sparkle that danced in Winry's eyes flashed away when her thoughts digressed, "…but you refused to let me go up into the sky with the nice young man who wanted to take me up there."

Ed frowned sharply, "You could fall out of the sky."

"But can you imagine," Winry clenched her fists tight at her chest, "sitting in one of those two seaters, hundreds of kilometres above the ground, hearing the roar of the engine, experiencing the vibration of the machine, feeling the wind blow through your hair…"

"… You wear a helmet."

"… Blow in your face as you soar higher than the birds and look down upon the puny people below, laughing at them cause you're up there dancing in the clouds thanks to some miracle of modern technology. My God, they'd look up at me with such envy!" Winry squealed, much to Ed's obvious dismay, and tightened the tension in her clenched fists and arms, shaking fiercely at the thought of the adrenaline rush, "I wanna make one…"

"Get a hang glider," Ed snapped flatly.

"Ed, you can't hear the raw power of an engine if you're on a hang glider," she resisted the urge to slap him over the head, preferring only to mull in the thought of building this airplane from a set of schematics she'd practically memorized, "it would be like my first born child… only better."

"Yeah, it wouldn't poop and scream and cry," Ed rolled his eyes, standing up, "it would just crash to the ground and kill you."

Winry's narrowed eyes followed Ed as he sauntered across the room, "You've been really cynical lately," though she suspected that was because she'd said yes to Albrecht's bizarre offer of dinner after she'd blind sided him; how could she say no to such a funny attempt at broken English, especially after she tried to carve out part of his skull.

"So how's the airplane so different from going up into space?" Winry hung her arm over the back of the chair, "You have to contrive a way to get down safely, if you can get up at all. At least you know that an airplane will get up into the sky. You don't even know if you'll make it out of the stratosphere, let alone how you'll get back down if it doesn't work. You could die trying."

Ed rolled up the diagrams and blue prints scattered across the table, snapping elastics around the ends of the rolls, "I could. But, like I said… forty or fifty years."

The defeated tone carrying in Edward's voice slapped Winry across the face. She hated hearing him sound like that.

Ed sighed and began to shake his head, "I'll help Hermann out, but this isn't going to get me home either. We'll find another bridge to cross, let's just go home for now and have dinner."

Winry debated speaking up, wondering if he realized he'd mentioned two homes, but instead rose from her seat. Wrapping a few elastics around her wrists she began to follow Ed's lead and rolled up the diagrams. She'd sort out which of these she'd place priority on later; her own version of a far superior AutoMail, mastering the principals of flight, or learning the theories behind space flight and propulsion. Those were all things she could do while she was here. Learning enough to contrive a way to return home would constantly be Ed's burden, she could not help but think of a solution that perhaps he'd never given thought to; or rather, did not want to give though to.

With the papers tucked under his arm, Ed waited, hand on the doorknob, for Winry as she darkened the room from the lamp light. Winry's shoes were barely heard as she cut towards the door in the darkness, a sound over looked by Edward. He attempted to pull open the door, only to be stopped as Winry's foot suddenly held the door shut.

"Winry, move your f–"

Her hand clasped down around his that held the knob of the door, Edward fell silent as she pinned him to the handle.

"Ed, can we just… let it be for a while?"

"Let what be?"

The rolled up prints left a hallow echo in the quiet room as Winry swatted them to the floor from beneath Ed's arm, "Why keep worrying about this so much. You know Al's searching for you, I told you that. If everything here does nothing but bring you to dead ends and impassable roadblocks, why not let your faith rest in Al and all your friends rather than watching yourself constantly fail. Al has so much more going for him, so much more he can use at his disposal that he doesn't realize yet. Doing this… it's not doing you any good."

"Winry…" Ed cleared his throat, sighing as he looked away; displeased with the idea of having to explain himself to anyone, "I want to go home. Even if the answer is going to come from the other side and not here, I can't just sit around and accept my surroundings. I'm not going to live a life here waiting to be rescued. Maybe I can find something that'll help, even if I don't know what it is yet. Maybe it's not going to help me until after I get home. But there's no way I'm going to simply sit by and wait; I don't want to accept this."

Winry didn't have the heart to tell him that some days it felt as though he'd accepted this long ago.

But, if he could at least continue to tell himself that the world was supposed to be unacceptable, it was better than nothing.

"I'm sorry…"

Ed sighed, rolling his head around on his neck, "You have nothing to be sorry for."

She wondered what sorts of solutions he had dreamed up in the past and never written down; they'd have to be daydreams, because they most certainly were not brought on by sleep. Winry was surprised that sleep was rather peaceful, even though she never seemed to dream. It was a peaceful respite, more relaxing than she could have imagined. Nothing happened while she slept. Sleep was a void in the progression of her existence; nothing could haunt her there, not like it could in the daytime.

"That's not why I'm sorry…"

It was while she was awake that she found she'd have nightmares. Was it even appropriate to call an event that had actually happened 'a nightmare'? Even as she stood in the relative safety of one side of the gate, if she thought about it hard enough, she could feel everything all over again.

Edward was kind enough to have never pushed her to discuss it, even though she was certain that he badly wanted to know what she'd experienced. They would discuss Al, Rizembool, Central, Izumi and Roze freely, but the conversations revolving around how she arrived would always be at her discretion. She knew that he was watching her walk along a similar path he'd taken. She wondered if he knew, from his own experience, not to bring it up.

"Winry… your foot's still in the way."

"Ed," she made him shiver as her thumb rubbed over the back of his hand in thought, "Al didn't use all of the Philosopher's Stone to bring you back. I think there was some left."

It was a left field comment that nearly knocked him over, "_What?_"

"The other day you said that Dante had become Lyra, that she'd lived for hundreds of years because she'd used the Philosopher's Stone to transfer bodies," there was no reason Winry should have found this information as frightening as she did, it wasn't as though anyone could punish her for divulging it, "the Mitchell family nurse said that people other than Al were still able to use the stone. I thought maybe they'd been lying to scare me."

Ed snatched his hand away from the door; firmly gripping his hands to her shoulders, the command of the darkened room held his voice at a whisper, "… She said what?"

"She couldn't be lying," it took all her strength to steady her voice, running the disturbing sequence of events over in her mind. She could hear that voice.

A new fear came into her mind, it compounded the first; the fear that detailed Edward's expression, "Because when I asked you how to create a hermaphrodite you said it was like human transmutation, and you need the Philosopher's Stone to do a human transmutation right. But… Diana's only four months old, and that's what she is. I saw it."

Ed's hands slid down her shoulders, crouching slightly to gain her castaway attention. Winry mind remained wrapped tightly in a sequence of events it continued to strangle her.

"Winry…" a hard seriousness lay the foundation of his coaxing voice, "did she say who?"

"I heard two names…" her eyes closed while white teeth gnawed on her lower lip, "Shou Tucker and the Prime Minister's wife, Lyra Mitchell."

The tension of a clenched jaw filtered through to his flesh hand; Winry stiffened when the grip pinched around her arm. Ed's slit eyes soon shot the vicious look of rage into the darkness of the room, silent long enough that Winry came to speak again.

"… Who died because she succumbed to a disease that caused her body to rot away…"

The words seethed out from between his teeth, "Damned bitch…"

* * *

It was tea. It was a nice, sweet smelling, peach tea. And the prime minister, who thought he was growing a new strand of grey hair with each day of stress that passed, slouched back in his sofa, accompanied only by the thoughts in his mind…

"Sir?"

… And two other people.

The man cracked open an eye, "… Aisa? Oh, and my Diana."

The nurse smiled down to the delighted reaction, extending the sleeping baby held in her arms, "I thought you'd like to see her before I put her down for the night."

"I always want to see my girls," even for an old and parentally inexperienced man, there was something indescribable and natural about holding an infant, "where is Nina anyways?"

Aisa glanced out the door, "She's dressing her stuffed animals."

"And our house guest?"

"With her, Nina's quite attached."

His wrinkled hand brushed the soft hair off Diana's forehead, "Thank you for keeping them occupied so I can have an evening to myself. You've been handling some of my business affairs as well, I'm becoming indebted to you," slowly Mr. Mitchell rose to his feet, walking around the comforts of the evening room with the child, "it's been very difficult with my wife gone, but you've handled everything with great poise and balanced children while you've been at it. I cannot thank you enough."

Clasping her hands in front of herself, Aisa played the part and cast her eyes down, "I don't have words that can repay this type of flattery."

"Mister Prime Minister?"

Both parties in attendance of the room turned their heads towards the door, curiously examining the attendant who'd asked for his attention.

"There's a telephone call from you, it's from military investigations."

Mitchell blinked, the obvious look of confusion was apparent, "What do they want at this hour?"

"They said it was important."

Straightening his tie, Mitchell returned the infant to her nurse and followed the attendant out into the hall, "I hope that whoever it is knows military channels go through Hakuro and not myself."

The attendant replied as he opened an office door, "The man on the other end said it directly pertained to you."

"Really?" Mitchell marched past the man, his hand coming over the telephone receiver resting upon the desk, "the call's been redirected here?"

"Yes, Sir."

Snapping up the receiver to his ear, Mitchell took a deep breath before speaking, "Sebastian Mitchell."

"Ah! Good evening Mister Prime Minister, this is Sergeant Denny Broche from military investigations!"

"Broche…" Mitchell knew this name, "Oh, young man! You're the one who found Alphonse and his young friend in the market explosion."

"Yes sir."

Mitchell's grin grew wide, delighted by the energy in the voice he was speaking with, "I'm glad to finally speak with you, was there something you needed?"

"Likewise," Broche's voice paused, "but we have information for you pertaining to the girl you have in your custody. Brigitte…Schittenhelm." He wasn't sure if the pronunciation was right, but it was close enough.

Mitchell's voice oozed with curiosity, "You found out her last name? That's wonderful, I will pass the information along so her family can be located."

"Well actually, one of our military escorts to the north returned today, and brought her mother back. Word had gotten around from a newspaper one of the troops dispatched this week had taken with him, eventually the woman came forward."

"You're kidding?"

"She has all of the child's documentation too."

Mr. Mitchell's hand came over his forehead, the delight streaked across his face, "There've been so few pleasant stories come out of the north. Where's her mother?"

"She's in the building, a few officers are just going over the last pieces of identification and paperwork so she can regain custody. We didn't want to separate her from her daughter any longer than she's already been."

"Oh of course. Mr. Broche, would you hold on just one moment," covering the mouth piece, Mitchell turned to his attendant and issued incontestable instructions for Aisa to bring Brigitte to the room at once, "my apologies, Sergeant. But, I can return Brigitte to her mother's custody tonight if it's not too late in the day."

"Not at all, I'm certain her mother will wait here, she's very eager."

Mitchell finally came to sigh, unable to dispose of the grin that had come over him, "Sergeant Broche, I thank you for this."

"No thanks required, Mister Prime Minister."

From the corner of his eye, the lovely young stature of the other child he enjoyed to call his own came into view, "I will be by the department within the hour, please be expecting us."

"Of course."

The conversation ended at that, and Mitchell turned to greet young Nina, who'd begun her approach. A giant white plush bear was held in her arms, the child's high pigtails had been curled and woven with ribbon to match the lovely deep blue and white dress she wore.

"I have good news my dear," Mitchell's grin ran ear-to-ear as he crouched down to eye level for her.

Nina's voice, dripping of sweets and innocence, tantalized the old man's ears, "Sir… Ms. Aisa told me in passing that Brigitte was to come see you immediately. Is something wrong with her?"

"Not at all," his hands came to rest on her shoulders, never realizing the child would much rather have rolled away in disgust from his touch than continue on with the curious investigation, "I have some very good news for Miss. Brigitte, I have to see her right away."

The child's saucer eyes glowed up at the man, her smile artificially lit as she continued the inquiry, "It must be important, you aren't normally involved with her activities."

Mitchell began to laugh, "Oh my dear child," he swept the reluctant child into his arms, "I'm sorry I've not been able to spend much time with you or your young friend lately."

Nina's chin rested at the man's shoulder, an unimpressed set of eyes casting their gaze around the room where he could not see, "What could possibly be so important that you'd summon my friend Brigitte?"

"I received a call; Brigitte's mother was found."

The childish tone fell from her voice like beams crashing down from the rafters, "… _What?_"

* * *

"Winry," Hohenheim had pushed his coffee table away, pulling around one of the kitchen chairs instead. He sat down in front of the couch cushion Winry had sunken into, momentarily glancing up to Edward, who stood, arms folded, scowl ablaze, in the corner of the living room, "I need you to tell me, from the start, what she said."

Winry scratched her kneecap momentarily, glancing at anything that was not Ed and his father, "Okay, so first after Diana's not so girlish… 'body' startled me, the nurse told me that Diana was a hermaphrodite. She said it was a girl and a boy fused from two different worlds. She said it was more efficient and convenient than previous methods. I asked her if she was an alchemist, but she didn't directly answer my question. I asked her what they were doing with Diana, and she said it was an experiment and that I should be part of it."

Hohenheim ran his hand over his hair, seemingly growing more unsettled, "Dammit…"

"Yeah that's a _big_ help, Dad," Ed's bitter voice snapped at him.

The older, and far more knowledgeable man, glared over his shoulder at the snarky remark. He engaged in a battle of displeasing stares before dropping the knife that cut the line, "An infant child has the most cohesion between its mind, body and soul, that's why Dante was easily able to call on the gate with Roze's baby; you know that. In theory, a hermaphrodite infant made up of life from within or beyond the gate and life from our side, can be used to not only call on the gate, but acts as a stabilizer for the gate and the two worlds. Not only can you send into the gate, but since the infant has properties of the gate, you can take from it as well."

Ed blinked through his dumbfounded expression, "That's ridiculous, who thought that up?"

"I did," Hohenheim answered flatly as his son glanced away, "several hundred years ago."

Winry tilted her head in confusion.

"I never came across a theory like that," Ed murmured, just loud enough to be heard.

Hohenheim smirked at the reaction, somewhat amused by Edward's shame for his own ignorance, "We never wrote it down; the underlying purpose was flawed, terribly so."

"Not that flawed," Winry squirmed.

"So the baby's a door stop," Edward's slit gaze traveled back to his father, "How do you know what you're going to get since you can't see beyond the gate."

"We don't know," shrugging, the old man simply sighed, "that's why it was flawed."

The conversation slowly rubbed Winry the wrong way. They were talking about using a helpless and defenceless child as a 'door stop' like it was nothing.

"Okay," Ed dropped his arms and pulled himself over to where the two sat, "so Dante has a tool that'll get her any given thing from this side of the gate…"

"Wait," Winry stopped the conversation, sitting forwards from where she'd embedded herself, "Dante, Lyra, whomever… she died in the hospital. I was there the day it happened."

Falling back into the cushions of the couch, Ed gave the type of reluctant sigh his father would have given, "There's nobody else who could manipulate that kind of knowledge. Even if Dante had passed only the knowledge along, it would take a superior and well trained alchemist to even attempt something like this."

Hohenheim's head continued to shake as he stood up from the chair, "Dante would never have let herself die off that way, especially if she had some portion of the Philosopher's Stone left and used it to fuse two children together. She would never have wasted it on that if she didn't have enough to sustain her own existence."

Ed's eyes hid behind his bangs, the last memories of a lost life playing over in his mind, "I don't know when or how she could have taken some of it from Al. Maybe when I was in London the first time she might have had the chance, but I can't remember Al looking any worse off when I came back."

Winry's eyes narrowed… 'first time'?

"From the sounds of things, I would suspect that Dante had been grooming this nurse for several months, working on easy suppression of her soul. She has no other reason to keep a companion like that, especially if she knew she was dying," Hohenheim carried the kitchen chair out of the room, his voice echoing in the hall, "it takes time to suppress the soul of a new host. We use to make a contest out of doing that, seeing which one of us could groom a new container first."

A faint growl emerged in Ed's throat, "That's disgusting…"

Winry slouched in her seat, running her hands over her knees as she tried to make sense of so many inconsistencies… 'we' he said?

"Some point before she died, she entered her new host," dusting his hands off, Hohenheim came to stand momentarily at the back of his couch, "and she's been taking this young girl, Nina, around with her since they met in the hospital?"

"Yeah," she jarred her head awkwardly over the couch to see him, "everyone met Nina at the hospital. I met her when Al took her out of the room."

"That's strange that she'd have a little girl around," the old man walked himself around and began to pull the coffee table back to where it had been, "especially involving the girl in her activities. She must have some use for her…"

The moment the table was within range, Ed kicked his feet up onto it, "I'd like to know how she managed to get Nina away from Tucker."

Slowly turning his attention over his shoulder, the old man's ear refocused on his son.

"Even if Tucker had managed to recreate some part of Nina's soul from his memories, she'd at least show some signs of her former self. Dante must have forged some sort of soul to get Nina to behave like that."

They were words with a daunting enormity and Hohenheim straightened his posture. His eyes cast down at the occupants of the couch; they seemed to wither away into their seats at the suddenly daunting presence the man carried, "What is Nina?"

* * *

"Nina…" Mr. Mitchell's voice stroked, "don't look like that."

With tiny arms folded and misery scrawled across her face, Nina continued to glare off into the corner, "It's not fair."

Sliding over in the reception seats, Mitchell wrapped an arm around Nina and pulled her onto his lap, "I know it's not fair to you, but it is fair to Brigitte. I'm sure she misses her mother very much, and it's not fair if we don't let the two be together."

"The military'll take her away and I'll never see her again," the voice continued the miserable pout.

"No, they won't," the man began to reweave one of the ribbons through her curls, "Aisa, you're still unable to reach the social worker who'd been looking after Brigitte before hand?"

With baby Diana in her arms, the nurse leaned back with a sigh deeper than Mitchell could realize, "No, but it's later in the evening. She may have gone to bed early or perhaps be out at a home for bedtime."

"I'm sure things have been coordinated with social services already, the Sergeant seemed on top of what was going on," His hands suddenly gripping Nina at her sides, Mitchell jostled the child lightly, "though, I think it should be your bedtime right about now. You're tired and it's made you cranky."

"That's not why I'm cranky," Nina's eyes rolled away; the gaze finally falling down upon Brigitte.

The girl had moved herself away from the group. Sitting in the last of a row of seats, she would not allow herself to acknowledge any of them. Heavily slouched in a very un-lady-like position, Brigitte's arms held tight around herself while her tired eyes drifted off into a corner; a myriad of thoughts occupying what lay beyond the distant gaze.

An indistinctive voice asked for her attention, accomplishing nothing beyond drawing Brigitte out from her daydreams. She curled a bit in the chair, realizing she had yet another bizarre craving for something she couldn't share with anyone.

"Brigitte?"

Lemonade, with a curly straw, real lemon floating around in the tall glass and two ice cubes; just like one of those magazine pictures.

"Brigitte!"

The words drew Mr. Mitchell to his feet. Brigitte wished he'd sit back down, until she came to realize he was not the one who'd called for her. She played the call of her name over in her mind, finally picking up the desperate tone. Before she could begin to understand why it sounded so urgent, Brigitte came to realize that the room was flooded with movement.

Moving to straighten up, Brigitte froze; a pair of soft and warm hands cupped her cheeks. The person who'd invaded her bubble of personal space held her attention forwards into the foyer. The strong yet gentle hands did not let go as the woman came to crouch down before her.

"Brigitte…"

The girl found herself swept up into the encompassing blue eyes that stared desperately back into hers. The swelling of humanity that wrapped into the gaze was so refreshing she could not let it go. After having experiencing nothing beyond the cold and emotionless existences of some obsessive devil child and her watcher, it was a welcomed sight.

Beyond strong blue eyes, a wind blown mess of short brown hair had been pulled into a clip atop her head. A large, hand knit, light beige shawl was pulled tightly around her neck and hung long over her body. Most startling was the bandage taped over her left cheek, and the red, blue and purple discolouration that painted a ring around her eye.

Only Brigitte was allowed to see the flash of surprise in the woman's eyes when her hand reached out and the tips of her fingers softly touched the white gauze, "_Did someone hit you?_"

"My God…!"

Brigitte's eyes flew open wide as the woman's arms wrapped around her, holding her tight. She could only listen as the woman's voice sobbed into her shoulder. Her inquisition of the English language continued, wondering what 'I never thought I'd hear your voice again' could have meant.

It was Aisa and Nina who made the next move. The presence of this woman that they could not prove was an impostor frustrated the pair enough, but it was the presence of the next man that brought both to their feet.

Mitchell turned from the warming scene, leading several military and police uniformed officers, Lt. Colonel Armstrong came to join the gathering; standing leagues taller than the Prime Minister as he cast his gaze towards the scene.

"It's so beautiful," a far too mature voice wept, "the reunion of such a loving family torn apart. Such an emotional scene of indescribable proportions, a mother embracing her lost daughter!"

The Prime Minister should have been intimidated by the towering man; until the swelling of displeasure that crept over his body the moment he came to realize, "You appeared at the State Alchemist inquisition, didn't you?"

Armstrong's sparkles died as the sudden question caught him off guard, "I was there, yes."

Holding baby Diana close to her chest, Aisa stepped forward to approach the gathering of men, "You were a State Alchemist?"

Armstrong glanced over to the woman's vicious gaze, "I was, yes."

"I cannot believe that the remaining State Alchemists were allowed to retain in their military positions. Those of you who did not do this world the favour of dying off should have been executed for your crimes," it was the most emotion Aisa had ever come to display; shouting out so loudly and angrily all gathered eyes had become cast upon her.

Mitchell cleared his voice, raising his hand to silence, "This isn't the time or the place Aisa, please."

"But didn't you and your wife–?"

"Aisa. Please."

The family nurse withdrew into silence. The echo of her critical voice continued to occupy people's minds while Nina decided it was her turn to approach upon the situation.

"Please don't harbour any ill will towards him," the woman who stood by Brigitte had once again risen to her feet; her hand held to 'her daughter's' shoulder as she addressed the Prime Minister, "both he and the sergeant were very helpful. There's no way I could thank them enough for all of this… or thank you for this, for taking such good care of my child. There's no way I could ever repay you."

Shaking his head of the bitter voice that echoed within it, Mitchell turned away from the scene and approached, "It was my pleasure, she was very nice and not a problem at all. Though, I imagine she's quite a bit for you to handle, given her condition."

The gentle hand reached back, coming down into Brigitte's hair, "She's a good girl, very intelligent even if we don't always understand her. Intelligence is more than can be what's written down on paper and communicated in words."

"That's very true," Mitchell found himself grinning at a statement soaked in faith. He eyed Brigitte and her utterly perplexed expression; the gaze followed along the girl's arm, watching as her hand moved the hand resting on her head and took hold of it. Ever since she'd arrived in this foreign land, Brigitte had made every attempt to understand the people around her – by watching their behaviours, by listening to the tones of their voices, by judging their reactions, and by listening to her instinct. It hadn't let her down yet.

Brigitte had a mastery for the art of non verbal communication, that's how all of the movies she'd spend hours watching had been presented: silently.

"Mister Prime Minister," Armstrong's voice came out as he came to stand behind the man, a clipboard, "would you review the custody transfer papers?"

"Of course."

Brigitte eyed the situation, narrowing her gaze in thought as she pieced together what was going on, "_Wait a minute… am I being sold?_" regardless if this woman would know what she was talking about or not, she was going to demand these answers as Mitchell scanned over the paperwork, "_Am I getting sold into British slavery? Is that what's going on here? Am I going to have to clean your house and chimney and barn and stuff?_"

The woman, still holding Brigitte's hand, glanced back as the indecipherable words came out, "Hmm?"

"_Do the English actually take German girls to be their slaves?_" her eyes narrowed as she thought aloud, "_I told my sister that she was lying about that; I don't want her to be right. You should have taken a look at my room before buying me as a slave because I'm obviously not very good at cleaning,_" Brigitte began ticking off her fingers, "_I leave streaks on tables and windows, I can't reach all the shelves, I'm terrible at making beds, I don't know how to fluff pillows properly, I make terrible tea and I'm even worse at cooking pastries. There are little girls out there who'd love to play house wife for you, why don't you go buy one of them and send me home?_"

"Oh my silly child," was all that could be given in response. The warm hands came over Brigitte's cheeks again, and she received a soft kiss to the forehead.

Brigitte's eyes traveled up as far to her forehead as they could go, watching as the woman leaned away from her; a hand sweeping up to straighten the child's blonde hair.

"… _Dammit_…" Brigitte sank in the chair.

The woman turned away from Brigitte as she accepted the clipboard with the papers, her expression falling as she watched concern sweep over Mitchell's face.

"What happened to your eye?"

"_I don't want to clean for anyone…_" Brigitte muttered to herself, ignorant of the conversations around her, "_I want to go home._"

"Oh…" her hand came up, "before the additional troops arrived the other day, Drachma attempted to move into the township again…"

Mitchell grit his teeth, "I heard Drachma tried to move through again just before the second deployment arrived."

"… There were several of us caught in it. Though, I suppose if I'd been turned a little further I wouldn't have my eye at all. This will heal."

"You've had a doctor look at it?" he eyed the fresh bandage.

Standing not far behind Mitchell, Nina's interrogating gaze was far more critical than the Prime Minister was even considering.

"I did," she nodded, "one of the military doctors put the stitches on. When I arrived in Central, they replaced the bandage. Everyone involved has been more than kind."

"You're making that up," Nina scowled, the eyes of the room cascaded towards her, "you're just trying to take Brigitte away from us."

* * *

Ed nodded in thought, "Nina died just after I turned twelve. Several years later, Tucker used the Philosopher's Stone to perform a human transmutation on Nina. He turned a chimera into a replica of his daughter. She was an injustice; just some lifeless mind and body he kept around, he wasn't strong enough to attach her real soul. His mental state deteriorated pretty rapidly after that, he carried her around like she was some doll."

Pausing a moment to sort his thoughts, Hohenheim finally redirected his interrogation, "Winry, you were there when Lyra's body died. Who was with her that day?"

"Um…" Winry was suddenly as uncomfortable as Ed found himself, she'd gotten used to the fuzzy grandfather feel; she was ill prepared to be grilled by him, "a lot of people. I think Nina and the nurse were there for a while because Al told me they were getting adoption papers ready. Mr. Mitchell and Al arrived at the hospital at the same time, but Al got to the room with me after she died. I think she actually passed away when we were on our way upstairs, because there was a sudden panic in the hospital. They were all there when she died, lots of doctors and nurses too."

"And you said you saw Nina? Alphonse and yourself met Nina for the first time after Lyra had died?"

"Yeah, Al went in just after it happened and found Nina in the room, that's when he met her. When they came out she told us that Mrs. Mitchell had said mean things to Mr. Mitchell and it made him cry. She died shortly afterwards. She said that she was holding her hand while Mrs. Mitchell went through seizures," Winry scratched her head, trying to recall that far back, "I don't think she mentioned much else."

* * *

Mitchell could have grown a few more grey hairs from her words, "NINA," his voice came out harsher than he'd intended, but he did not intend to revoke them, "that's a rude thing to say. Apologize to her."

The wide eyes of the woman stared back at Nina as her scowl deepened, refusing to acknowledge Mitchell, "They don't even look alike."

Her words placed a stunned silence upon the adults.

"My nurse says that big ogre was a State Alchemist, just like she told me that guy who saw Brigitte that one day with Alphonse was once one too. She told me what kind of people you were. I bet they're conspiring to kidnap Brigitte cause she talks funny. Why else would a State Alchemist be involved?"

"Young lady," Armstrong's prowess stepped over the impudent child's, "I'm afraid you're not entirely correct. I am a senior official in military investigations; of course I'm involved."

"Liar!" Nina's tiny voice bit back.

Mitchell's last strand of tolerance had snapped, "Aisa! Take Nina to the car, drive her home, and put her to bed."

"You stupid old man!" Nina's feet stomped, but it was Aisa's hand that came down upon the tantrum throwing child's shoulder.

"That's enough Nina, show some respect," Aisa obvious frustration look out the aghast reactions of the people around them, trying to silence the child, "behave!"

"Don't touch me," Nina slapped the hand away and promptly spun away from another grip that looked to come down upon her other shoulder. Without warning, Nina suddenly tore off down the length of hallway.

"Nina!" Mitchell called out.

"Dammit," Aisa secured Diana in her arms, and took up fast pursuit.

* * *

Hohenheim slowly lowered himself into his favourite chair, his elbow coming to rest on the arm, cheek in hand, "Each time we enter a new host, we force the soul into submission. In a proper transfer transmutation, when we transfer out of the host, the suppressed soul is dispersed and the body dies. If Dante is in poor health, the transfer might not be clean. A few things might happen: the original soul may resurface rather than being killed off with the body, or the alchemists' ability to suppress the new soul is greatly diminished."

'We'

Winry's eyes cast away suddenly, stiffening to suppress the tremble pulsing through with each heartbeat. She followed the fabric weave in the cushion, trying to bring about calm; but her ears soaked up the words spilling out around her, each more horrific than its predecessor.

"Eternal life is not possible. There are only so many times we can transfer our souls before the soul itself deteriorates. The body deteriorates with the soul, becoming more rapid with each new host. Each time a new soul is suppressed, the deterioration accelerates and worsens if the underlying soul is not subdued properly. I suspect that's why Lyra's body rotted away so quickly, a poor or hasty transfer."

Winry wrapped her arms around her stomach; she was going to be sick. From the corner of her wide eyes she could see him; his lips continued to move. He was Ed's father, Ed accepted him, he'd been so nice to her, and obviously Mrs. Elric had loved him.

But he was some sort of monster.

Didn't anybody notice this? How could this not be important to anyone? The man spoke and Edward ingested the information like some studious and fascinated pupil. Like it was normal.

This wasn't normal, it was something else, an enormous something else.

* * *

Nina had the advantage of barely reaching four feet tall and used her height to dart around those who lingered in the halls. She continued to hear Aisa's voice cry out, pleading for her to stop.

The child tore down the flight of stairs, the curled pigtails flying out behind her as she took each step two at a time. Her polished shoes clicked with each step until she cleared the flight of stairs. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Nina turned her nose to the air, brushed her dress smooth and walked the length of the main floor hall; her fists clenched tight in childish protest.

"Nina!"

Nina clenched her eyes at the sound of her nurse's voice, "You said you'd ensure Brigitte wouldn't change hands! Did you change your mind?"

"Don't be silly," Aisa gathered her breath as she looked down to Nina, "but this was a mess from the start; we didn't know. You know as well as I do that its Brigitte's existence here that's important, not Brigitte herself."

"Of course I know this," Nina scowled, "but there must have been some way for us to keep her. I liked playing with her hair."

"I don't see how either of us are in a position to…" Aisa's voice trailed off; her eyes catching two figures at the end of the hall, stepping through the entrance doors.

Straightening, Aisa cast a critical eye down the hallway. The approaching footsteps echoed in the silence while the late evening hue glowing in from the glass doors slowly revealed the guests. Unsettled whispers floated between the two as they watched their two guests smile upon them.

"… What the hell is she doing here?"

"… Why are they together?"

* * *

"Then the nurse's body is going to rot away quickly too. If she was sick in a hospital bed to do the transmutation, she couldn't have been in good health."

"No…" Hohenheim derailed Edward's train of thought, "the transfer from Lyra to her new host is clean, and I would not doubt that this new body will last far longer than her others."

Edward's confused stare trailed over to Winry, only to find that she would not return his gaze. Her attention was cast aside, unresponsive and silent. The lingering concern about how distant she seemed carried in his thoughts as he refocused on the deep curiosity he had for his father's information.

"You just said it gets harder to suppress a soul the more times you change bodies, plus the soul itself is rotting away."

Hohenheim stood up from his chair and moved sharply over to where Edward sat. He swatted away the feet the young man had placed on the table, and sat down where the heels had once been placed. Much to Ed's utter dismay, the old man reached out and took a firm grip of his son's hands, "How many hands do you have, Edward?"

Ed sat silent, his eyes wide in confusion, wondering what the hell the man thought he was getting at, "Two…"

'One' may have been the truth, but 'two' was the answer.

* * *

The moment of disapproval flashed away from Aisa's eyes, clearing the complexion so that it could carry her smile in response, "There must be a master puppeteer out there playing with our threads. We keep meeting, Mrs. Hughes."

"Isn't it strange, we've met here twice already," Gracia giggled as she and her guest came to stand in front of eyes which could barely hide their interrogative gazes, "I should introduce everyone. This is Prime Minister Mitchell's nanny, Aisa, and this is his daughter, Nina. Ladies, this is Roze, she's an acquaintance of mine from out of town."

Aisa extended her hand, "It's a pleasure."

"Likewise," Roze smiled, yet a tingle harassed her spine; the eyes dissected her and she couldn't rid herself of the shiver.

Glancing at her watch, Gracia's curiosity filtered out, "It's nearly 9PM, what are you two doing here so late at night?"

"They took my friend Brigitte away! They sent her off with some lady…" Nina's arms folded in a pout, turning sharply away with the firm stomp of her feet.

Gracia's gaze softened, her hands clasping as she looked down, "Now Nina, I'm sure there's a good reason. She was under social services care after all."

Aisa held Roze in her gaze, and did not turn away when the young woman confronted the unnerving vigil.

"I'm sorry… was there something…?"

"No," Aisa's reply was quick, "I was just enamoured. Your skin tone, and your eyes… you can't be Ishibalan… but, are you from Lior?"

* * *

"'She held her hand', isn't that what Winry said Nina had spoken?"

Ed's eyes narrowed, "… Yeah…"

"It would be impossible for Dante to do the soul transmutation with that many people tending to her, they'd all notice. It would have been done before her vital signs plummeted, which leaves her alone with Nina and their nurse."

Squirming uneasily as he sunk into his corner of the couch, Ed watched as his father's hands clasped over his good left hand.

"Then Lyra suffered a seizure and died."

His words were slow, "That's right."

"The other hand was held undoubtedly by Mr. Mitchell since he views himself as her husband. Lyra's body did not die immediately after the transfer, so the soul began to resurface and spoke with Mitchell… to make him 'cry'."

Edward's discomfort and curiosity conflicted; but his father's words held him riveted. Between the two, Hohenheim displayed the grasp he had of his son's hand.

"This right hand is held by the Prime Minister, and this left one his held by Nina. Which of the two available females do you suppose was able to clasp her hands around Lyra Mitchell's hand long enough for a pulse to be sent through her nervous system…"

* * *

"Oh," the question lifted her unease, "yes, I am."

Nina's voice suddenly broke above all else, "You're a lady from Lior?"

The topic suddenly became uneasy again. Roze wondered silently if the people of Ishibal felt as though they were spectacles of society too.

"Yes… Nina, was it?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the childish fit Gracia tried to tame was suddenly lost, a wave of excitement suddenly swept over her behaviour, "I've never met anyone from Lior before. You have pretty hair!"

Roze could only laugh at the delightful statement, "Thank you, Nina. That's very sweet of you to say."

"I'm glad I could meet you, Ms. Roze!" Nina's hand held out wide for a handshake.

Nina's childish perk continued to tease Roze with amusement; her giggles continued, "That's so sweet, I'm glad to meet you too," she took the child's tiny hand into hers, "Mr. Mitchell must be absolutely delighted by you."

"Thank you," Nina's tantalizing grin grew across her face as the free left hand moved up to clasp around the handhold she secured with Roze.

* * *

"… Until she died of a seizure…"

Silent, Ed paled.

"… To stop her former shell from talking."

Ed's eyes latched onto Winry as she stood up. She moved swiftly out of the room, not a word nor a glance given to anyone.

The boy's lips moved slowly as the gold gaze followed the girl exiting the room, "To stop her from telling everyone what had happened…"

He watched; looking towards the hall Winry had vanished into. Even her shadow quickly disappeared from the wall. He held the confusion subdued in his thoughts while his mind came to focus once again; Ed slowly brought his attention back around to his father as the elder man returned the borrowed hand.

"Even if my hands were that small, all I'd need to do is touch my fingers to complete the circle."

* * *

"Roze?" Gracia's voice took Roze's attention and she rose to her feet, pulling away from Nina.

An unseen moment of wicked displeasure and frustration crossed Nina's eyes. The fingers on Nina's left hand curled like a cat's claw, flicking her wrist with a weak swipe at the airspace she'd once held the hand in. Her tiny arms dropped away at her sides as she returned her attention to the conversation.

"We were supposed to meet up with them at quarter to nine, it's ten to already."

Roze leaned forwards and swept one of Nina's curls over her shoulder as she moved to join Gracia, "I'm sorry Nina, we'll talk again sometime, alright? I'm sure we'll get a chance to visit again."

Nina's tongue clicked off the roof of her mouth before flashing a bright smile for the two departing women, "That's fine, I'm sure we'll see each other again soon!"

The tiny left hand, dangling at her side, twitched in frustration of an unfinished task.

* * *

"Nina…"

It was the basis for disgust; hadn't that child's existence been violated enough?

"You should have told me Nina's state to begin with. Dante is not a stupid woman; she saw the empty shell of a child that would require so little effort for her to enter into. The rotting of the child's body would be substantially diminished because there is no soul to suppress."

A child, who'd never grown old enough to commit one, had become immortalized as a weaver of sins.

"Only Sensei would know about Dante's existence… but she doesn't know about Lyra, not even Nina. The only people who might are Tucker and any of the remaining homunculus."

This woman; who'd ruined he and his brother, who'd vanquished his father, who'd scarred a life long companion, who'd decimated the existences of so many over time, walked around with the façade of a child. She walked around free, continually weaving the strings of other people's futures.

"When you look at the face of a little girl, how much blood could you fathom she has on her hands?"

* * *

It would have been quick and painless; now if only her gaze could kill as well, the women who walked away from her would never know what happened to them.

"Aisa," Nina's cold eyes followed the women until they disappeared up the stairs, her voice carrying low, "have you heard any word back from Ishibal?"

"Nothing affirmative, but the damage was extensive," the nurse followed Nina's gaze down the hall, their voices created no echo in the hallow tunnel, "Drachma took no prisoners."

"Send someone to look into a survivor list for Ishibal, I want to make sure they're no longer around. I don't need anyone else in my way again."

"Of course."

The harsh gaze brought on by compounding frustrations turned up to her nurse, "Has the Tucker operation come to pass?"

"Yes," Aisa nodded slowly, "it went down yesterday."

"Was he found?"

"Wrath, you mean?" the longer Aisa paused, the more she could feel the frustrated aura grow, "he vanished during the operation."

"Send them back," Nina bit back at the response.

Aisa found herself in a surprised stutter, "but… Miss…"

Nina jarred her body around; it was a vicious gaze and a threatening tone that strangled her underling, "Send them back, the wretched thing should be easy to kill, he's probably in the latter forms of digression by now, he hasn't had any red stones in nearly eight months. After all he's been through, they should have depleted by now."

Silence was the affirmative reply, and Nina returned to marching forward again. Her tiny hands slipped up into her curls and she gain swept the childish decorations off her shoulders, "Are they on their way back to Central?"

Aisa followed, her voice held submissive, "The last two trains were to Central, there won't be anything heading out of Xenotime for a while."

"Ensure that they are indeed returning and not running amok."

"Of course."

The child's uncaring gaze watched as a curl returned to dancing on her shoulder, "Remind me to secure a wire out to my two friends. Central City is gathering people with curious minds. They should be put to rest."

"Miss," Aisa came to a stop, watching as Nina continued to move forwards, "you're letting the situation weigh on you too much, it was the best we could do given the circumstances."

"Oh I know, and I know that it will be inconsequential soon enough," for a moment, the corners of the child's lips curled up, "in some ways, this was a better solution than I'd have anticipated, though I miss having daily access to that foolish old man's office."

The nurse threw out a lifeline of encouragement, "I think we have something more interesting to concentrate on now, wouldn't you say?"

Nina stopped, entertained by the curl that continued to dance over her shoulder she wrapped her finger in it. The finger was so tiny, she loved it. And she giggled; the voice she now controlled sounded every bit like a child's. Her own voice continued to tickle her ears and she laughed. It was a child's laugh, a sweet, young voice playing in the air space.

She'd bled it of its innocence.

"Ma'am, earlier… was that sort of tantrum really necessary?"

"Aisa, I haven't been younger than twenty five in centuries, I am allowed to throw a tantrum however and whenever I please. Do not critique my behaviour," Nina's left hand swept out to dismiss an idea she'd come to change her mind on, "they can keep Envy's gift, I don't particularly care anymore; she serves no practical use other than being the proudest trophy in my collection," her tiny fingers teased the bangs sitting on her forehead, "I can do without trophies, as much as I'd love to look at her day in and out."

Her footsteps picked up again, with Aisa's soon to follow. The final soaking of evening sunlight cast dark shadows over the pair, what remained seen for colour became drenched in a fiery orange from the last gasp of a setting sun, "Even if they do solve her puzzle, it's not as though they will ever know enough to understand the importance until I'm finished."

Aisa's arm reached the door before the tiny arm of the body below her, pushing it open for the tiny mistress.

"My dear, old Envy, I'm enamoured by you," a giggle carried softly in the little voice; her footsteps created more volume than her words, but nothing could over power the substance, "only you could have remembered an idea of two ancient fools. How could you have imagined that I'd be interested in this once more? You are far more daring than your bastard father has ever been; even he refused to confirm the existence of life beyond the gate for us. I'm sorry I didn't notice your gift sooner. Please, make sure you're present to see what blooms from the seeds you planted. You won't be disappointed."

* * *

It had been years past since the seeds for the future were planted.

A rogue seed, an ageless seed - one for all eternity. It continued to rot in a festering, malevolent shell. Forthcoming from a solitary night, the decision was rendered to once again exert a merciless fury on a people, a society, and, so importantly, a man he did not care for. For this, the upper hand was not only his to possess, it was his to orchestrate.

The eyes of the devil gazed coldly from behind the mask, smirking in thought.

**

* * *

**

To Be Continued...

* * *

**Author's Notes  
**  
Dante and Envy work evil even if they aren't together.

So many freakin characters… and I can't leave them out (especially Roze!) cause they're so important. There's going to be a party in Central City soon enough, good thing I know where it's going to be held ;3

_"Wow, Ed was uncharacteristically open with Winry."_ – I think Ed appreciates Winry's presence and he's going to convey that through a level of trust and confidence he places in her. I keep reinforcing the idea he's spent the last five years with no one but his father, and now he has someone he's known for as long as he can remember; he's going to be a little clingy, protective, and place all he has left for trust in her because she is the only thing over there he knows he can trust… even if she does go for dinner with Albrecht X3;;

No photograph yet! And poor Brigitte is so confused. Remember, Brigitte is in italics because she speaks German and not English.

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	16. The Devil's Mask

_"Daddy can I get down?" _

_The request was quickly fulfilled with the fluid sweep of Hohenheim's arms. Dropping to his feet, Ed did not remain in place long enough for his father to take his hand. Taking a few steps back until he could see the man behind the counter clearly, Ed's tiny hands came to his hips._

_"I'll help catch the mouses for you!"_

_"The word is 'mice', Edward," Hohenheim corrected._

_Ed quickly turned to his father, "But I said I'll catch'em! You can help too Daddy, right?"_

_"It's okay young mister," the attendant smirked with faint amusement and leaned over his counter, "I'll find a way to rid myself of these disturbances."_

_Raising his hands in front of himself, Ed's grin grew wide, "Daddy gets the mice out of the house when he cla–"_

_"Edward," though his actions were swift, his touch remained gentle as Hohenheim took hold of his son's left hand. Kneeling down, the other strong hand came to rest over his shoulder, "Edward…" his voice held a playful tone up as a guise, "you can play jump rope, right?"_

_Ed nodded vigorously at the statement, "I'm better than Winry at it, but she's always bragging she's better."_

_"Well, why don't you ask those girls we passed outside if you can join them and show them how much better than Winry you are."_

_"Mmm 'kay!"_

_With that, Edward scampered from his father's grasp, toddling to the door and pulling on the handle until it popped open for him.  
_

**Chapter 67 – The Devil's Mask  
**

* * *

He looked back with stern disapproval; everyone remained steadfast to his gaze. Steadying his umbrella beneath the wind and hard rain, there seemed to be nothing that would turn them back.

He didn't even want Alphonse there.

It was a graciously given second chance to keep the boy from everything that had gone wrong the first time around. Yet, he found himself unable to push back the same determination that he'd shown while following his brother through a hell most adults could never dream of. Stern silver eyes challenged the directive that the children at least remain in the car, the same relentless gaze that had challenged him in the hospital weeks before. He did not look like his elder brother, his eyes carried a different glow than his older brother; but he carried a strikingly similar aura. Five years had taught Mustang enough that he'd come to know better than to argue with a determined Elric.

"Open it."

Hawkeye took her cue. The shot from the handgun echoed within the mouldy factory walls, the lock that tumbled to the cement floor left a startling echo.

The only one who could remember this place did not, no one even realized he'd been there before. In this tiny, flooded out city beyond Xenotime, the crumbling factory that was once the workshop of Shou Tucker existed in near ruins. Half of the city did. Existing in disarray beneath the torrent rain, the frailty of life was made a bloody spectacle in the streets.

Inside the ravaged facility on the wrong side of a departed invasion, the five stood, bundled in raingear, unable to avoid the wind and rain funnelling in through the gaping roof and torn siding.

Kicking the lock aside, Mustang pulled open the heavy wooden cellar doors. The first direct hint of suspicion came because of the lock's existence. A lock with no abrasion; obviously placed on after the intruders had ransacked the building.

The doors fell open and Roy found himself assaulted by a nauseating stench upon decent.

"Major," Mustang's hand extended back to her as she placed a lantern into his hand, the snap of his readied glove hand bringing the wick to life.

He entered first, followed by Alphonse, Fletcher and Russell, with Hawkeye taking up the tail end of their line.

Pushing open the door at the bottom of the staircase open further, Mustang stopped their decent as he peered inside the room emitting a rotting odour. Holding the lantern high at the entrance, Mustang's teeth clenched at the atrocity rotting in the middle of the floor.

"What the hell is that?" Russell's muffled voice came through from beyond his hand covering his mouth as he peered beyond Roy into the room.

"'Was'," Hawkeye corrected as she moved past the Tlingum children, stepping to the edge of the sticky pool of dried blood, damp once again from the rain's moisture.

Mustang's gaze carried back to his subordinate, only to find Alphonse standing silently between them at the edge of the sticky red mess. The boy's eyes cast upon the poorly lit expression that had existed last on the creature's face, his voice trying to conceal the overwhelming shock of what lay in pieces upon the ground.

"… This was Shou Tucker?"

Roy hesitated, uncertain how to read Alphonse's behaviour, "Yes."

Beyond the travesty that lay at their feet, the sets of eyes wandered around, examining the shattered chimera tanks and opened animal cages; there was nothing left in the room beyond Tucker's dead body. Roy quickly glanced over his shoulder to Riza as she pulled open one of four closed doors around the room.

"When you said he was a chimera…" Al stepped slowly around the mess, the eyes of the two guardians falling upon him as he looked down at the severed head looking back at him without any sign of life, "I didn't think it would be this bad."

"That's disgusting," Russell's face wrinkled as he moved closer to the situation.

With great displeasure for the situation, Roy moved over to Riza as she began opening doors to the room, looking to clear out the stench.

"None of them are locked," pulling open the third door, Riza turned, "none of them are lit either."

Peering into the darkness, Mustang could only frown, taking a quick glance over his shoulder to Alphonse who hadn't moved from his spot, "That's alright," extending his left hand towards the darkened tunnel system, he gave a light snap of his fingers, flaring up the candlelight, "we have other problems."

Shadows created from the lantern began to dance quickly, catching Al's attention. His eyes darted toward the exiting staircase, the parade of chaotic movement avoiding his direct line of sight, disappearing once the light settled down.

"Where's the rest of his body?" Hawkeye squinted in the poor light as she tried to make out what existed in this cavity beneath the building.

Huddled up against the wall, young Fletcher's eyes focused away from the central mess, "some of it's over there…"

The young Elric stepped out from a bloody mess towards Russell, his attention carrying past him towards the staircase.

Raising his lantern higher, Mustang's eye narrowed with curiosity, "It's been moved around…" both officers' eyes scanned the room, looking for the two upper arms that were no longer attached.

"Did you see that?" Al whispered, standing next to Russell.

The older Tlingum glanced over his shoulder as Alphonse stepped past him, "You saw something?"

Stooping in the pale outreaches of Mustang's lantern light, Al narrowed his gaze, questioning if he'd actually seen something escape from the shadows. Glancing back over his shoulder to Russell, Al ducked out of the room and began to ascend the surface.

"What's he doing…?" Russell muttered, unimpressed. Glancing to the officers distracted by the two remaining exits, he turned to follow Alphonse back upstairs, issuing a stern warning as he exited, "Fletcher, stay here."

The young Tlingum couldn't argue, he didn't want to go ghost chasing, since this room was unsettling enough. Fletcher's right hand grasped over the front of his shirt as he turned his attention back to the officers, wondering if they'd even noticed.

The echo of the rain against the tin roof of the old factory was nearly deafening, it sounded like hail. Al moved slowly as his wide eyes scanned the room, though he nearly shrieked when Russell's hand grabbed his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"Something's moving around," Al shook the hand form his shoulder, "I think it ran out from the basement… one of the chimeras. All those cages were open and empty."

Russell held the ends of his poncho tight in his hands, in defiance of the brisk, moist draft spiralling around them.

"We should get Mustang… it could attack us and we're not-"

"No," Al's steps quickened, the sounds of his shoes never heard above the pounding rain dripping through the roof, "if it was going to hurt us it could have done that when we got here. It ran for a reason."

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Russell folded his arms, intent on giving the young Elric one of his 'Older Brother' lectures that he'd give Fletcher, only to realize that the boy was running off again.

"Alphonse!" his feet dug into the damp ground as he broke into a sprint to catch up.

Already scaling a mountain of rubble at a point where there was no roof to deflect the falling rain, Alphonse stopped, his eye catching something in the debris.

"Al!" Russell followed into the debris field, watching curiously as the boy began throwing the debris aside.

Crouching down around the hole he'd created, Alphonse shoved a bit more debris aside before his hand came to cover his mouth, eyes wide with wonder and confusion at ruins he'd found.

"Alphonse?" Russell perched himself next to him, "are you o… kay?"

His gaze followed Alphonse's, looking down into the uncovered mess. Both boys remained silent, the rainfall against their ponchos providing more than enough sound, examining the remnants Al had revealed.

"A transmutation circle…" Russell broke the vocal silence, eyeing the portion of a shattered wooden tabletop.

"It's my brother's…"

The voice was so quiet, Russell wondered if he'd mistaken what Al had said, "Come again?"

Alphonse leaned forward, his hand reaching tentatively towards the tabletop. From the corner of his eye, Russell watched as Al brushed his hand over the rain-soaked, wooden surface, tracing a finger through the grooves of a partial transmutation circle, engraved into the wood.

* * *

Edward froze in his steps, the briefcase dropping from his fingertips.

Breathing stopped, eyes flew wide, and ears fell deaf. It was so cold. The flesh hand slapped over the back of his neck as he spun around. Wide eyes scanned down the street, then back towards the university.

He didn't even know what he was looking for; it was like someone's cold breath blew over the back of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine.

Nobody was there.

Trying to smooth away the hairs that stood on end, Ed's hand rubbed his neck slowly, wondering what would cause such an uncomfortable feeling.

"And I thought I was the only one jumpy today."

Ed spun on his heels at the sudden voice, barking out his uncertain aggression, "Did you do that?"

Narrowing an eye in confusion, Hess examined Ed's obviously flustered behaviour, "Do what?"

"… Never mind."

"You know," Hess's arms folded across his chest, "I have a reason to be on edge, you don't. Are you up to something we should know about?"

"Who's 'we'?" Ed asked flatly, picking up his briefcase swiftly, "What are you doing here?"

Hess turned over his shoulder quickly. For a moment, the vicious, spiteful gaze Hess enjoyed wearing during Thule meetings shot out into the streets, "If I'm out in the open with someone, less chance something will come up."

"Thanks, you're using me as a shield," it only left a disgusted taste in Ed's mouth.

"There have been eyes watching me on this street since the moment I stepped outside to see you walking home," Hess smirked, as though amused by the game he intended to play with whomever was following him, "it's been going on for days."

"Lovely. And you've followed me around on some of those days, thanks a bunch," rolling his eyes, Ed returned to walking away, "Maybe if you did other things in your spare time, you wouldn't think people were stalking you."

Hess's expression fell away, glancing to his departing companion, "Edward, wait up."

The sudden urge to continually beat his own head into the wall crept up as Hess insisted on following Ed.

"Is there a reason you're here?" Ed shot out flatly, "or am I just convenient?"

"What are you talking about? My class is done, I'm heading home," Hess spoke with a laugh, "did you have a bad day at work?"

Ed rolled his eyes, feeling as though he were being spoken to as a child, "no, my day at work was fine."

A lecherous grin grew across Hess's face, "something else then?"

"How about someone else," Ed's snapped to another topic, not wanting his displeasure to become too well known, "You're that Mr. Hitler's friend, you might know," his pace slowed as a question came to mind, "my father asked me to check with Hermann but he didn't know, so maybe you do. Where does Mr. Hitler gets his wine?"

"His wine?" Hess blinked at the strange question.

Edward could only shrug, "Before I left this morning, My father wanted me to ask around and find out which wineries in Germany carried certain brands of wine. He mentioned something about being surprised that Mr. Hitler could import some certain expensive wines for that party you're planning and wanted to know where we could get some for our wine cabinet."

"Aw hell," Hess scratched his head, "I have no idea where Adolf gets some of his stuff, he has a network of connections that would leave most men jealous. Leave it to him to pick the best."

Re-gripping the briefcase in his hand, Ed's pace picked up again, "Great. I've done my part, he can call the wineries himself."

Matching speed with him, Hess took a few quick steps to join Edward's pace, "You know, it's a shame you and Winry are going to be out of the country when he gets out. We were planning quite the party."

There was that 'no touch' nerve again, "We're not leaving the country, my father has no idea what he's talking about."

"Albrecht told me that Winry said you two were going to London."

The comment stopped Ed in his tracks, "When the hell did he talk to Winry?"

Hess did his best not to laugh at Edward's obviously flustered reaction, "You know, everyone's having a great laugh over how protective you are of her when Albrecht's name comes up."

Ed wished he could bite back about that but chose restraint over a potentially uncontrollable rant, "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Your father was talking with Karl the other day and the idea came up to let Albrecht practice a phone conversation with her because that's what he was doing in class right now. Hohenheim said Winry's entertained by his English skills," Hess mused, "and it's not like you've ever volunteered to help Albrecht with his English skills."

"Not like I've ever volunteered to talk to Albrecht, period," Ed's unsatisfied expression carried far down the street he walked.

"You know Edward," Hess frowned, shaking his head, "I don't know what you have against him, but maybe cut Albrecht some slack once in a while."

Ed's skin began to crawl at the thought. Since the day he had met him, he'd seen nothing but a slimy boy who slept around on his girlfriend and seemed quite proud of the fact that he kept getting away with it. Decency wasn't something high on many people's lists of behaviours, apparently.

"Besides which, I think Albrecht realizes that if he tried to move in on Winry, you'd put him in his grave," the words rolled off Hess's tongue with a laugh, "that or she'd beat you to it. She's… eccentric and isn't afraid to exert herself. It's somewhat frightening, no woman raised in a German household behaves quite like that; I'd have hoped most of Europe would be the same way."

Scratching his head at an odd flood of disturbing and mostly painful memories, Ed glanced up in thought, "Yeah well, Winry's out of place in most European settings, you shouldn't be too surprised."

"Obviously you've figured her out then?" his eyebrows rose.

Ed simply shrugged.

"So how does it work?"

"What work?"

Narrowing his eyes, Hess wondered if Ed was playing with him or was actually serious, "Well, if you're sleeping with her there has to be…"

Loosing the sound of Hess's voice, the man had managed to derail Edward's entire train of thought with one foul swoop, leaving a mortified expression in it's place.

"I'm WHAT?"

Amused by the exaggerated and shrieking response, Hess licked his lips at the ideas crawling around, "You're this great big mystery Edward, most men I can paint a clear picture of, but you're withdrawn from most social settings and I don't know what to make of you half the time. Winry came along and you seemed more amicable; it's rather nice. I've actually seen you around town more often," Hess watched as Ed twitched, a hand slapping over his face as he tried to simply grasp what was being implied, "you've been here over two years now, that's a long time to be away from home. You took her home from the hall and no one saw you resurface for the next several days... we assumed you two were making up for lost time."

The pitched shriek Edward managed to give was far sharper and louder than the first, "What the hell are you TALKING about?" Flinging his body square in front of Hess, Ed stiffened his shoulders as he brought the world to an abrupt halt.

Hess could only blink.

"I am NOT sleeping with Winry," even saying it sounded wrong, "WHO gave you the idea that I WAS?"

"Well…" frowning in thought, Hess' reaction remained subdued, "we just figured that's what you two were doing. I mean, you two live together, you take her everywhere, you bicker and yell at each other but still walk or drive home together when you're done… we just assumed that's what you were getting out of it. I wouldn't put up with any woman using a belligerent tone of voice with me unless I was getting something quite rewarding in return."

"Rewarding?" once more, Edward wondered where that conveniently placed wall he wanted to bang his head against was.

"You two seemed really close when you were with her in the Thule hall. We've seen you around with your father but you keep your distance from everyone, it was strange to see you with any sort of openly compassionate side."

"Geh…" Ed's eyes crossed while his head drooped in disbelief of their interpretation.

"… So I'm going to assume you're going to deny our rumour?" Hess made no secret in his tone that he was playfully disappointed.

"Winry was scared, okay!" Ed threw his hands up in frustration, "you idiots frightened her for four or five days and she kept on crying, what did you expect me to do? I'm not going to let her cry on the bed by herself."

"We were given incorrect information; you and your father straightened that out. Beyond that, she put up a fight whenever any of us came near her."

Ed held his disgusted look over the man.

"Hey…" a frown developed in Hess's expression, "I apologized, don't look at me like that."

Taking a slow, deep breath, Ed finally straightened his posture and tightened his ponytail with a stiff jerk, "I've known Winry for as long as I can remember, and she's different than that. It would be like you sleeping with your sister…" he shuddered, "… it's not happening. Tell all your friends, it's not happening. Tell anyone who asks, it's not happening," sudden realization came as he continued with the denial, "where the hell was my dad to tell you this was not happening?"

"We asked him, and he said he didn't know."

"That stupid ass!" Ed's voice once again snapped with frustration, paying no mind to Hess's frown for the derogatory description he'd given of his father, "He knows we don't do anything, he'd be even nosier than he is now if we were."

"Hey," it was a cross tone of voice Ed had not heard Hess use very often, "don't speak so poorly of your father."

As much as he wanted to carry on his tirade, Edward opted for the wiser of the two courses of action. Simply discarding the line of conversation without another word for it, Ed decided he was going to walk away, "It's quicker for me to cut through the market. Are you still heading up street?"

Hess picked up on the deliberate change, somewhat grateful that he didn't have to engage in a verbal sparing match, "I am, but I'll see you at school tomorrow. You will be in?"

"I try to be," Ed made his abrupt ninety degree turn at the street corner, giving Hess a passing glance from the corner of his eye as he ended the conversation, "don't let those ghosts follow you home."

"Heh," he could only smirk at that, "I have a bullet for every eye that considers spying on me, though I still can't shake this feeling."

"Good luck then," raising his hand in departure, Ed made haste into the market, wanting nothing to do with whatever Hess planned to say or do next.

Only able to shake his head with a laugh, Hess let Edward walk off. Never in a million years, he thought, would he figure this one out. He loved a mystery, and as much as he enjoyed the intriguing aura of Hohenheim, he still enjoyed trying to figure out why it was Edward kept the people around him at arms length.

With arms folded, Hess continued his walk up street, a smirk landing on his face as he ran the preceding conversation over in his mind.

"Sister, huh?" steps slowing, the Thule member's pace ground to a halt as he looked up in thought, "I thought that information was incorrect; she was mistaken as his sister. I was certain Hohenheim had said Edward was his only child."

Looking back over his shoulder to the vacant spot he'd held the conversation at, Hess's arms slowly fell away. His mind drifting from the musing sensation to another the man's eyes carried down a sidewalk sprinkled with moving people. The gravest of concerns filled his eyes, his feet slowly moving back to the corner where the two had gone their separate ways.

It was gone.

With his attention tearing into the marketplace, Hess watched the unconcerned world move about. The eyes he'd felt since leaving the campus, the ones that watched him, the followed him, daunted him… the one's he'd have killed if only his hand would reach the trigger fast enough, they were gone.

"My God… I wasn't…"

He tore off into the marketplace.

* * *

Something tipped, and both boys turned their attention towards the direction of the sound as it came crashing down. Alphonse stood up, his alerted attention distracting him from the engraved surface. The boys stepped along the debris, slipping into a corridor between the heavy machinery scampering until they found themselves in the heart of the firearms factory.

Russell took a few steps towards a toppled tower of equipment piled against the wall, the obvious source of the collapse.

"Over there…"

"No, wait…" Al's voice came stern as he stepped up alongside Russell, his eyes darting about in the dim light, trying to map out where the closest points of escape could be.

"Al," Russell momentarily glanced away, "Tucker used to work for the State you said? I heard rumors about the type of chimeras they wanted to create… if this thing attacks…"

Slowly, Alphonse stepped away from Russell, moving towards the crumbling cement wall, "Even if it's two different animals, it's still an animal," he motioned for his counterpart to move to the other side of the mess, "Chimera's attack at the order of their master, but there's no one here to command it. So if you don't give it a reason to fear you, it won't attack."

"That's not a reassuring strategy…" Russell's shoulders sank as he stepped towards the far corner at the wave of Alphonse's hand.

"Just don't run," rising on his toes, Al tried to see what lay in the shadows of a factory in ruins, "if you run, it'll chase you."

Pressing his back against the cold, damp wall, the elder boy carried his gaze around the room before finally setting into the darkened mess of equipment, "That I'll believe."

The rain pounding against what remained of a rooftop and pouring in from a gaping hole above, drowned out the sound of Alphonse's approach. As much as he was thankful for that, he wished it wouldn't drown out the sounds of anything moving around in the darkness. His eyes glanced down the room, watching as Russell carefully made his way around the debris on the floor.

The shadows moved and Alphonse found himself frozen. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the eyes look back at him. Curiosity told him to move forwards, fear told him to move away; all that could be done was for him to stand motionless, wide eyed against a cloaked opponent.

"Al!" Russell's horse whisper called for him, barely heard above the constant echo within the room.

"It sees me…"

It was Alphonse's frightened voice that wasn't heard; this wasn't frightening before, he had the thing cornered in a mess of metal. He was supposed to have the upper hand in this situation. But it moved, he was certain of it, and it moved towards him even if he could not see it make an advance. He wondered if it was not the wind he was hearing wheezing through the cracks, but the sound of the animal's breathing.

"Alphonse! Russell!"

The angered bark of Mustang's voice commanded the attention of both boys.

"What the hell are you two doing?"

Alphonse next found himself laying flat upon his back on the ground, thrown from his feet by the force of a body in full sprint. Dropped upon the damp floor, his eyes looked up into the boxes and shelving piled high into the rafters, and the body flinging itself up towards the protection it would provide.

His eyes narrowed in confusion, it was a human body.

"Wait!" Al's voice rang out as Hawkeye's gun fired, he shrieked when the bullet ricocheted off the shoulder of the moving shadow with a spark and bounced off the cement next to Alphonse's ear.

"What the hell?" Mustang's brow rose as Hawkeye lowered her gun in a mix of surprise and confusion.

Scrambling to his feet, Alphonse had barely moved two steps before freezing, the body that had collided with him dropping down from the rafters at the connecting corridor between the two rooms, right in front of Fletcher.

Both bodies, of practically matching heights, stood frozen in motion, practically nose to nose, looking into each other's eyes.

Stepping away from the collapse of equipment, Russell stood speechless at the wild child standing before his little brother.

Riza and Roy snapped their attention to the sudden situation, both swift to draw their guns.

"Don't shoot!"

Alphonse's voice came over Roy's shoulder, tightening his expression, "Why?"

"That's Wrath," Al's voice swept out as he came to stand next to Roy, "his right arm and left leg are AutoMail, I felt it when he hit me. The major's gunshot went off his right shoulder. Winry put that AutoMail on him…"

"Wrath?" Riza's eyes narrowed.

"He ran out from the basement, I thought it was a chimera that escaped. He might know what happened to Tucker."

Lowering his gun, but keeping it at ready, Mustang looked at the back the motionless child, covered in lengths of frazzled hair, "Who's Wrath and what was he doing down there?"

Al paused, wondering if he should give out the information, "He's one of the homunculus."

"What?" Alphonse suddenly had Mustang's undivided attention. With the security of the major's shot at his side, Mustang turned to look into the nervous expression the Elric wore.

"Why was that creature equipped with AutoMail parts?" glancing back, Mustang paused for a moment as a disturbing realization hit him, "…why does he have the same AutoMail as your brother?"

His eyes turned forwards, Al took a moment to glance up to Russell who'd joined them, his jaw quivering with the urge to speak, "Fletcher… back away from it…"

"Brother, he's…" it was the intrusion of the younger Tlingum's voice that diffused the standoff, Wrath's posture slowly loosing the aggression and panic for escape that he'd been moving with.

"Why are you here?"

The tremble in the purple eyes held Alphonse where he stood, watching as the young Homunculus turned towards him. The look did not freeze Al for long; slowly his tension slipped away and posture straightening as he looked into the timid gaze that bore no resemblance to the creation he'd known as Wrath many months ago.

"Why?" The voice was childish, carrying a frightened cry within it. Alphonse remained silent, wondering what could have caused such a change; the anger and rage no longer present in the small body.

"Answer me!"

As Wrath turned towards the barrel of Hawkeye's gun, staring into the startled and confused expression Alphonse carried, Fletcher turned quickly on his heels and ran into the safety of his brother's presence.

Violet eyes suddenly shot around the room, dropping his defensive posture against the people around him, Wrath stumbled himself around in circles, wildly looking about.

"Sir?" Riza's voice held low, waiting for the order from her superior to fire; an order that Mustang held carefully in his two signalling fingers.

The movement stopped suddenly, the Brigadier General finding himself entranced by the frightened look in an unnaturally coloured gaze.

"I knew they came back because of you!"

Mustang's brow slowly rose as Wrath's voice shrieked.

"It'll be your fault!"

"Alphonse!" Riza screamed in frustration at the boy as he moved into her intended line of fire, chasing after the homunculus that had quickly fled before his last syllable was spoken.

Roy considered cursing the boy for having an impulse reaction like his elder brother, but his attention was stolen the moment a frosted glass pane shattered, ripping into the echo of rain. Turning in the direction of the noise, the remaining four watched the remaining stack of boxes and equipment, piled high along the wall, begin to topple over.

"Get back here," Roy's darkened expression directed the Tlingum brothers towards the back of the room, his good eye watching a thick, grey smoke billow out from the collapsed mess, "get against the wall."

"Let's go to the other building," Russell glanced to Mustang who'd opted for his gun over his glove, wary of what fire could set off in a factory filled with ammunition and weaponry.

"Sir?" Hawkeye found herself standing at the senior officer's back, as the two moved in a circular tandem, surveying the room.

"Wait…" he wished he could command the wind and the rain as well as people's voices. Mustang's right gun hand came to point at an archway of glass panes that remained in tact.

Her left hand coming to steady the right, Hawkeye kept her focus trained forwards, listening for what existed beyond the storm.

Huddled up against the wall, farthest from the flowing smoke, the Tlingum brothers watched as the cloud began to flow around the two officers who paid no attention to the growing screen. As the rain thundered down against the roof, spilling in from its cracks, Mustang's jaw tightened as he fought to see something beyond the growing grey haze and frosted white windows.

"… Get down… "

* * *

"Grace?" Winry paled, it was a strange word and for some reason, she didn't like it, "how do you say 'Grace'? Isn't 'grace' how you walk?"

A meal of ham, steamed carrots, and sweet potatoes steamed up from the centre of the table as she stole a glance of the dinner before questioning Hohenheim once again.

"A lot of families in Germany, Europe in general, say 'Grace' before sitting down to dinner. It's a thank you to God for the meal."

Leaning back, Winry watched as the elder Haushofer placed a wine glass down at the side of her still empty plate.

"If there's a guest over, it's not uncommon for he or she to be the one who says Grace before the meal."

Winry's eyes traveled around the dining room, Mrs. Haushofer setting the white buns down with the meal, Mr. Haushofer returning the wine bottle to the middle of the table, Albrecht's continued gaze cast upon her, and Hohenheim fixing the napkin in his lap.

She couldn't tell him that she didn't want to do such a thing, Albrecht knew enough so that he'd understand her.

Winry fiddled with the napkin in her lap, "I don't know what to say…" it was a merely defensive response to an uncomfortable situation, "God didn't make this meal, Mrs. Haushofer did…"

"Winry," Albrecht's voice made her nerves even worse, "you will have thanks for this food before we begin the eating?"

Even in his butchered English, it was like another unwanted pressure for the topic, "Sure, I'll… think of something."

"I am happy for that!"

Half the time Winry couldn't figure out if she wanted to laugh at him for sounding so funny, or have his tongue cut out because it had gotten so annoying.

The conversation at the table broke into a chorus of foreign German as plates began to fill; the transition allowed Winry to unwillingly distance herself from the moment. It was a fleeting, passing sensation that sat heavier than the food could have in her stomach. The dinner looked so good, so warm; the ham, which had been the last cooked ingredient of dinner placed at the table, billowed up with thin white steam. Albrecht had asked her if it smelt good; yes was her answer for his question, but no was the response. Dinner was a table decoration. Every night, dinner was a table decoration that only teased her tongue on what life use to taste like. It was a bother that had grown up over the three weeks, the wanting urge to taste and savour the meals, the drinks, the aromas. It was all there for her to grasp, all of those sensations, she'd watched other people enjoy them; but she couldn't find it for herself.

One more piece of life went missing.

"Winry?"

"Huh?" she blinked over to Hohenheim, a stupid expression must have crossed her face that caused a few giggles around the table.

"Do you have something to say for Grace?"

She wished to be five years old, so she could throw her napkin at the plate and yell how mad she was at this inanimate object for making her so unhappy. She was not thankful for this food, "I will… make something up…"

Wrinkling her face in thought, Winry found herself momentarily flustered at the bowed heads and hands in laps; even Hohenheim, which seemed more wrong than her saying Grace.

The thanks Winry ended up giving was for the doorbell that rang.

"Right at dinner hour too," Karl Haushofer stood up from his meal, "people have no manners."

"Or no wife to cook them dinner," Mrs. Haushofer gave a smile, casting an eye at Hohenheim who began to laugh at the statement, "it's a good thing you have Winry staying with you, I can only imagine the catastrophes you and Edward cook up."

"I will have you know that I'm a fine cook, Edward is not bad at it himself," Hohenheim conveyed through a smirk, "my wife use to love it when I cooked for her."

Smoothing her napkin over the skirt of her dress, the woman could only giggle, "If either my husband or my son ventured into my kitchen, our house would burn down in no time. Did your wife teach you how to cook? The men in my household seem quite disinterested."

"I actually knew how to cook before I met Trisha, and Edward had some culinary guidance from his mother and a teacher."

Winry raised her eyebrows to the only two words in the conversation she was sure of, spoken with a casual delight that seemed inappropriate for the names.

It seemed to be an astounding concept, "They teach young boys how to cook in the British school system?"

"In the education stream Edward went through, yes."

Entirely disinterested in the foreign conversation, Winry glanced over her shoulder and out curiously into the rest of the house. With only moments to let her distraction wander, she quickly turned to face forward as Haushofer returned into the kitchen with a dinnertime guest who seemed somewhat familiar.

Her eyes focused on Mrs. Haushofer who greeted the interrupting man with a delightful smile. The gibberish continued on with a jovial light tone, Winry ran her attention around the room, trying to figure out who this somewhat familiar face was. Haushofer's voice intruded with a grave tone that caught her attention, and Hohenheim's as well. Unsettled, Winry held her hands in her lap, her attention redirected to Hohenheim the moment he abruptly stood up from his seat. The unnerving vocal tones held her discrete, painting a distraught world through the sounds of everyone's voices. The intruder continued to speak while her eyes glanced from man to man: their guest would speak, Mr. Haushofer would speak, Albrecht would speak, Mrs. Haushofer finally spoke when addressed by her husband. Winry's nerves wanted her to curl away each time Hohenheim's broke into the conversation; Edward's father that did not 'speak', he demanded and commanded.

"Winry," his tone chilled her as her gaze traveled over to meet an incontestable sternness, "stay with the Haushofers for the night."

"What?" she squeaked, looking up at him horrified. Her lips moved to protest but the moment she caught his gaze, he silenced her challenge.

"Do not leave the house unless myself, Mr. Haushofer or Mr. Hess have come to get you, understand?"

He was frightening; her bottom lip itched to move in defiance of being with a family she'd barely had the company of for two hours. She couldn't find enough courage within herself to protest against the damming eyes of a man who'd quickly discarded his empathy. She'd spent the last few days telling herself that if Ed knew and accepted him as he was, she could too. But again, his existence, towering above her with a powerful aura, frightened her.

Turning to leave before Winry could cast her gaze away in submission, the raging concern that swept over his expression became far more alarming for her than his aura ever could have.

* * *

"What happened to Tucker?"

"Why did you have to come here?" the tiny, frightened voice cried back.

"To talk to Tucker," Alphonse swallowed the tremble in his body, looking blindly into the darkness, "did you kill him?"

The dark hole carried a gut-wrenching odour that Alphonse forced into the back of his mind. Like a frightened and trapped animal, Wrath remained buried in the darkness of a corridor he'd unsuccessfully tried to hide within. The young Elric's hands clenched to subdue his fear of the confrontation. His jaw tight, eyes stern, Al waited for the darkness to move. The one thing he knew for certain: the only way out was through him.

"She killed him. She cut off his head."

Pausing, Alphonse found himself caught off guard by the abrupt answer. It came blurted, like a secret that he'd been longing to share.

"Who did?"

Alphonse waited in the silence, feeling the faint, cold breeze against the back of his neck as it flowed through the stench, seeping in from the hatch he'd left open.

"Dante."

Alphonse's defensive guard fell, his shoulders giving away beneath a confusing answer, "Dante's dead."

"No…" such a timid sound, but the fear Wrath held in his voice had been redirected, and Alphonse's gaze became lost in the darkness as he began considering the improbability of his statement.

"Why'd she kill him?" regardless of who Wrath thought had done the deed, the question had to be asked.

"Because of Nina."

There was that name; it was a tiny name for a tiny child shrouded in a mystery no one had yet been able to answer for him.

"Was Nina Shou Tucker's daughter?" Alphonse nearly bit his tongue at the eagerness in his voice. He knew as well as anyone, at the core of his question lay a disgusting truth he was afraid to know the answers to.

"Yeah."

Just one more question. No matter what he would find out about this young child's existence, she seemed to carry so much more life, history and intrigue than he could ever have guessed. Everyone seemed to either love her or want her. The pinch bothering him in his chest made it an immoral choice to concern himself with only the self serving interest of his own and not that of a family in ruins, "Why did…" Al side glanced as he thought about how he could possibly imply Dante, "how did Nina have anything to do with it?"

"He wouldn't let her go," the darkness had turned deep grey; Alphonse held in his eye the black signature of Wrath's figure as he sat on the damp cement floor, "she cut off his arms first so he'd let her go."

Even though he'd seen the chimera's hairy torso bled out on the floor, Alphonse could not help but carry the image in his mind of the human Shou Tucker: the image he'd looked at from Mustang's files during the train ride. He'd spent so long becoming accustomed to the image, the only thing he could envision was the man, the father, refusing to give his child over.

As tattered as it was, it was still a family of two. A forged family of two, he knew this. The stunning grey eyes shrouded in the cavern's darkness steadied themselves in the cloud and asked a terrible question.

"Do you know how Tucker took Nina from the Gate?"

"He didn't."

Alphonse's posture straightened to a quick and unanticipated answer. Wrath's response was affirmative, without hesitation, but how could he not have? There couldn't be any other way someone could look so-

"He made her."

Pausing, Al wondered if Wrath understood what he was asking. Roy had told him Tucker was attempting to recreate his daughter, but he wouldn't be able to finish her without retrieving her mind and soul from Gate.

"You helped him finish making her, with the Philosopher's Stone…"

The words blew through his chest like a rusty old spear. Again, there was the Philosopher's Stone. Everywhere he looked, all the answers that he knew, everything found it's way back to that. He did not want that, yet reality insisted on bringing him crashing back down to earth. Stiffening his shoulders as he took a sharp breath, trying to hold his disappointment and composure in check, Al forced himself to think over the other implication Wrath had presented.

"I brought her back…?" For the moment he thought about how this could be his fault, the air was hard to breathe, "why would I have…? It doesn't make any sense. How could I have enough left for my brother?"

"You did though! Dante said you did…"

Distancing himself from the words, he continually fought to fight the numbness wanting to take him over.

"… because you were the only one who could, Tucker's alchemy couldn't do it without you."

Al turned slowly, dragging his feet along the soggy surface of the floor as he moved away from the darkened dead end. He didn't want to hear any more, this had been a waste of time; beyond that, it hurt. For a few days he could finally start progressing towards answers, something that could give him a lead, or a starting block. He found himself dropped back at the point where he'd began before the idea of Tucker or Nina. Alphonse continued to walk away from Wrath, carrying with him nothing more than an ugly story about a time in his life disassociated from his current state. A frustrated silver gaze looked ahead down the hall, he wished Sensei or Winry were there to lean upon for support, but he only had himself. Taking in a slow walk away from the situation, Al's eyelids drooped as he thought Wrath's statements over.

He could only shake his head, the more he thought about it, the more something was wrong with Wrath's information. He'd used the stone to bring his brother back, and that was the last thing he did. How could he have possibly had enough Philosopher's Stone for two complete human transmutations…

"Hey," Alphonse spun on his heels, turning back towards the unlit tunnel his voice called out into the blackness, "are you sure we're not – GEH!"

Finding Wrath standing right behind him, Alphonse stumbled backwards in surprise and quickly found himself fallen on the floor. Staring up at the saucer wide eyes that looked back down at him, Al could only sigh.

"Why do you want to know all this stuff?" Wrath tilted his head, "you make so much trouble with it."

"I want to reach the Gate," rising to his feet, Al patting the damp seat of his pants unimpressed with the soggy floor he'd landed on, "and take something from it."

An over exaggerated scowl crossed Wrath's expression, "I don't like the Gate."

"Neither do I."

"You know," the purple eyes examined Alphonse fiercely, "the Gate doesn't like your idea of Equivalent Trade when you want things from it."

"And I don't want to give it anything in exchange," a grin swept across Al's face, hands landing on his hips as he played along with the childish voice Wrath used in the conversation, "so we're even."

Turning again, he continued to make his way back towards the cellar doors; his hand coming to cover his nose as the smell of rotting flesh grew more potent the closer he came. He could hear Wrath following, his bare feet echoing off the damp floor.

"But I don't know how to get to it safely," Al's gaze carried up to the low ceiling as he thought, "let alone get someone from it. I think you and I are missing something…"

"Diana."

Alphonse stopped, looking back over his shoulder as Wrath's footsteps came to a stop.

Holding a distant and still unsolved riddle, the inhuman eyes Al could see in the darkness shone with a damming knowledge, "Diana is part of what you want, just like Dante wants too."

Al slowly turned, squaring himself around to the presence Wrath began to carry, "Diana?"

"Dante wanted to make Diana for that theory," the young voice bounced off the moisture on the walls and surrounded the last Elric.

"Is she a thing…?" Al's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"It's not a she, it's a baby."

Al's arms fell down to his sides, thoroughly confused by Wrath and his story. Choosing to disregard the gender confusion, Al found another question to pose, "Why does Dante want a baby?"

"Babies talk with the Gate the best…"

Slowly, Alphonse's eyes widened with intrigue and fascination, listening as Wrath offered up a simple elaboration.

"… and Diana is a special baby."

"What makes Diana special?" he couldn't help but ask.

Wrath's face twisted as he danced around in thought, "Hmm… lots of things."

"Like what?" his tone attempted to coax Wrath along.

"Well," the young homunculus tapped his chin, "you can do that thing you wanted to do, 'cause Diana's part of the Gate," Wrath paid no mind to the widening expression on Al's face, "she's made of some Philosopher's Stone, so she doesn't listen to all of the Gate's rules."

The idea of using a baby for an alchemical experiment seemed horrifying; an infant is defenceless and unable to defend itself, a horrible victim of some mad man's experiment. Standing in the darkness, Alphonse ran over the implications in his mind, the cruel and heartless idea of violating an infant; yet, it could access the Gate. Letting the information soak in, he tried to find reasons and possibilities for what he'd been told. Refocusing his attention upon Wrath, Alphonse couldn't help but think of the alchemy array that had been on Roze's baby for so many weeks before finally fading away.

"Where is she… er… it?" the question came off his lips tentatively, carrying stern caution as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

Wrath's response was quiet and withdrawn, somewhat to Alphonse's relief, "I dunno, I've never seen it."

Even if he didn't want to know, the response Wrath gave him was unsatisfying. Frowning, more so in frustration for the overwhelming mountain of questions and obstacles coming to light, Al challenged the answer, "Then how do you know there's a Diana?"

"I don't know!" Wrath's voice rose in protest of the accusation in Al's tone, "Dante wanted the Lior baby for it, but it wasn't working right. She wanted to change him into the Diana baby so the theory would work, but the Lior woman took it away."

Al's eyes widened, his head slowly shaking with confusion at the bizarre information, "W-which theory?"

"The Gate one!" Wrath's voice whined with displeasure at the barrage of questions, "The one Hohenheim made!"

The darkness hid how quickly the colour drained from Alphonse's complexion, the tension vanishing from his shoulders as his hand's hung loose at his sides, "… My dad?"

Not given time to digest Wrath's words, the pair's attention shot towards the echo of sound rushing down the hallway. Alphonse froze, he could feel it in the echo, in the ground; the world moved from some type of explosion.

"They came back!" Wrath shrieked, taking Alphonse's attention. The boy looked on; wide, dilated eyes watching the fear flow through the small body, "I knew they came back because of all this."

Remaining standing in the echo of what Alphonse soon realized was gunfire, they grey eyes watched Wrath tear off into the black mess of hallways beneath the building that led into Tucker's lab. Turning back towards the faint light, now flickering with noise and movement, the youngest Elric took two frightened steps away from the only known exit before running into the darkness of the hall system.

* * *

A crushing grip rattled a pair of cold, metallic bars, "Get on your feet."

"Does anyone know you're here? At this hour?" the voice carried bitterly, unimpressed by the interruption at the post-midnight hour, "waking a man up at this time of night."

"Are you that cowardly?" Hohenheim's voice shot out with a startling ferocity.

"Isn't it a bit late to hold so much rage?" sitting up slowly from the old mattress on the cot he slept upon within the prison cell, Adolf opened his eyes towards the angered voice, "even if those bars were not in our way, it would be quite unwise for you to handle me, Professor Hohenheim."

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

Hohenheim's eyes slit, "Edward."

With a deep sigh, Adolf rose from his creaking bed, "Who's Edward?"

"Don't you dare…"

"Oh your son!" his fingers snapped, coming to sit on the cozy wooden bench against the back wall, "that's right. Is he missing?"

The voice raged with a low rumble, "If anything happens because of your actions I'll-"

"You'll have no way to prove it because I am in jail," Adolf's hands slapped down upon his kneecaps, cutting into Hohenheim's threat, "now satisfy my curiosity Professor, why do you care so much for that existence you feel is worthy enough to be known as your son? You've come all the way down here to threaten me, yet I still cannot see you as a man who cares for a family, especially something as broken as 'Edward'."

Hohenheim's attention focused on a strange line of questioning, "your opinion of my life style has no bearing on how I conduct myself."

"Perhaps I cannot envision it because I know the types of actions you are capable of," his words drifted around the room, pretending as though he were lost in thought.

Hohenheim's directed speech was far less whimsical, "My actions with Thule and my actions outside of that are entirely unrelated."

"So what are you doing here?" Adolf grew a similar, serious tone, still holding the entertained atmosphere in his speech, "accusing me of these things, when you should be out looking for your son."

"I thought it would be best to go straight to the source," Hohenheim's smooth speech shot towards the man sitting in the post-midnight darkness of his confinements, "rather than continuing to chase my own tail around until sunrise."

His eyebrows rising, Adolf seemed mildly delighted, "I am flattered to know that our last conversation found a place in your heart."

"Where is he?" Hohenheim was done with the man's game.

"Why don't you just let fate run its course and see if he turns up."

Scoffing, Hohenheim turned his nose up at the suggestion, "Don't lecture me about 'fate' when you are the one intent on toying with it."

Adolf held the room in silence, looking back at his accuser with the same cold gaze bestowed upon him. With arms folded across his chest, he leaned back against the cold cement wall, "I do not like what you are implying, Professor Hohenheim."

"Then I'll tell you again to answer me," the words came without care or regard the previous statement.

"Maybe he'll float up in a swamp," his voice carried a bored drawl, "face down."

"Why do you insist on interfering in my business and with my family?" Hohenheim snarled, forcing the image Adolf had created from his mind, "I've told you time and time again that I have no quarrel with you."

An unforgiving gaze looked back at him as he spoke.

"If you insist on confrontations with me, fine, I will deal with you," the father's voice thundered out, "but your issues with me have no reason to include anyone else around me."

"That is not how this system works," his left hand smoothed over his chin, "besides which, I cannot comprehend why you're so insistent about caring for your son. He and his mechanical parts should be thrown out with the trash. Beyond that, I've heard you've abandoned him before," Adolf watched as the man beyond his cell bars stood frozen at his words, "while you lived in London, and that you were reunited after many years in the days after the zeppelin raid. Are you making some foolish effort to atone?"

Just for a moment, Hohenheim had forgotten that was the story he'd concocted to explain Edward's recurring animosity towards him; the realization relinquished a strangling fear that had lingered for far too long.

"Hence, why I'm confused about how a man like yourself cares for his children so much."

Hohenheim paused, curious at the wording, "I have one child."

"That's it? I was told you had more children in your household," the man said with the tilt of his head.

With the slow shake of his head, Hohenheim made the correction to an assumption, "No, I only have one. Winry is a family friend."

"Strange…" he came to fold his arms, once again trying to give the illusion he'd become lost in thought, "Someone must have been confused when I heard you fathered more children."

Hohenheim's gaze hardened, speaking slowly at the frightening and sickening sensation of déjà vu from the smooth tone of voice, "It's happened before."

"Obviously some mistaken identity…"

"By whom?" the words came harsh and cold, frozen over as they snapped from his mouth.

"… with 'Winry' then."

Each syllable came with strict enunciation, determined to break how the conversation flowed, "Given by whom?"

"Someone named Bryan," Adolf waited, watching Hohenheim as the old man tightened his jaw, unable to strangle the life out of the metal bars he'd come to grip.

"You remember the man I speak of? He ran the postal outlet you once frequented. I found out many interesting things about your life and your family from him," throwing one leg over the other as he sat upon the old wooden bench within the prison cell, the toying man watched as Hohenheim stepped away from the barrier that prevented him from tearing something apart, "Do you remember the time we met there? Your son was with you. It was the last time we'd spoken outside of your introduction to the Thule Society. You received a package: a bottle of wine."

His hand sweeping over his tightly tied hair, Hohenheim let his cold gaze hang cold over the conversation, casting his fierce golden gaze back at the man who paid no mind to the atmosphere.

"You remember what happened that day, don't you?"

"I'm curious to find out how you think you know what was in that package," Hohenheim's voice fell low, he began to piece together the implications of this knowledge. Adolf once again asked for his attention, and Hohenheim gave it to him, watching as the man stood up from his perch.

"In the south district, some stray members of the Freikorps have an 'office' of sorts. Perhaps he might still be there," smoothing his prison shirt, Adolf slowly approached, "and if you two grace me with your presence at my celebration next week I might tell you how I came to know that there was a bottle of Mariana's Finest in your package."

His fists clenched so firmly the strain on his muscles caused his strong arms to tremble. Eyes shut tightly at the recollection of a memory, jaw grinding at the thought; Hohenheim finally threw himself away from the situation. Hands gripping his ponytail as he yanked it tighter, he straightened his vest with a firm tug and marched down the hall towards the door.

"Hohenheim," Adolf watched, smirking; the bellowing call did not slow his departure.

"Let me make myself perfectly clear," the man's words rang out down the hall, wrapping around its listener, "I did not tell you where to find your son because I pity the wretched thing's existence. Nor did I tell you where you might find him because I carry any concern for your poorly conceived idea of a family."

Angered golden eyes carried boiling frustration for a suddenly far more dangerous situation, refusing to look back as the vocal sounds bounced around him.

"Pick up whatever may be left of his tattered body off the ground and hold in your eyes the knowledge that I can manipulate many different strings of 'fate'. In my Germany, you are a very little man. With the position you hold, I will not tolerate how you stand against me. So, before you die, I want you to dance in whatever performance I dream up for you, before something more unfortunate happens."

Firmly, Hohenheim gripped the metal handle of a prison door.

"Perhaps your son should watch when you're put in your place, and then know who was able to accomplish that."

Glancing down at the hand that held the cold handle, Hohenheim gave a response, "Edward has nothing to do with us."

"Unfortunately, as I'm sure you're aware," Adolf's arms came to rest against the bars above his head as he leaned against the confinement, "I've already included him in our _little_ tizzy."

His hand gripped around the door handle, throwing it open as the taunting voice broke into the mid night silence once again.

"Do I get to see the look on your face before you walk out the door?"

The door swung shut without him turning back, but the echo of Hohenheim's fist slamming into the wall let Adolf's grin of satisfaction curl a little more.

**

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To Be Continued...  
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Author's Notes  
**  
Like always, check my profile for info! I love reviews… if you're here, you should hit that review button and tell me what you think. It always makes my day :D even if its been a billion years since I started this lol XD

Poor Ed… he lives his life with this neon yellow "Pick On Me!" sign hanging over his head.

I think I've given my insight into Hohenheim once already, check in some previous chapters for my explanation for his behaviour and mannerisms. But keep their conversation in the back of your minds for a bit, obviously it was rather important.

Moofy is everyone's favourite devil child.

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	17. Returned to Parent

**Foreword: Little bit more violent and foul for this chapter.  
**

_

* * *

Trisha slid herself into the last remaining chair at the table, giggling at the wrinkled face her youngest made while her husband re-seated himself at the table. _

_"Mommy?"_

_Edward's call caught her attention._

_"Didn't Winry's mom and dad already make us an anniversary supper?"_

_Trisha's fingers came to her lips in thought, "They did, but that was last month."_

_"They beat me to it, I was supposed to treat your mother to dinner," Hohenheim announced, an eye raised as he sat down at the table, "but there's no harm in having a second dinner. We can place the blame on the bottle of wine that showed up a month too late."_

_Her hand covering her mouth, Trisha began to giggle as her husband popped the cork of the wine bottle, "I love when you cook for me, it's such a masterpiece."_

_"It's not that good," his hands held the bottle with great care as he filled the two wine glasses on the table._

_"You've had many more years to refine your cooking than I will ever have," Trisha protested, though she could not clear the delight in her expression after having spent the remainder of the day in the yard with her children while her husband filled the house with the luring smell of roast beef, steamed vegetables, and potatoes._

_"Daddy, can I have some wine?" Edward's tiny voice peeped._

_"Me too!" _

_Both parents gave a shake of the head as Hohenheim returned the cork to the bottle stem, "This is too strong, it'll put you to sleep and then you'll be waking up at all hours of the night."_

_Placing the tall glass in front of his wife, the father sat down; slipping the stem between his index and middle finger, Hohenheim raised the glass into the air, "To…"_

_"To Mommy and Daddy!" Alphonse's voice sang out as he held his plastic cup of juice strongly in the air, a motion soon mimicked by his older brother._

_Trisha's giggles couldn't be withheld as she tipped the rim of her glass off her husband's, "To 'Mommy and Daddy'."_

**Chapter 68 – Returned to Parent  
**

* * *

The voices in the room became only echoes of existence. Tired, gold eyes looked out from beneath the tight knot of a lowered brow. He thought hard, consciously pacing his breathing as he kept it in check, or else it would run away from him. Another bead of sweat slid down his forehead; the sole of Edward's shoe gripped the cold cement as sat, keeping his back pressed against the wall.

It was that close; so close he could feel the touch of the metal doorknob in his hand, but between himself and the only exit was the old wooden table he'd tried feverishly to damage in his earlier struggles. On the chair at the side of the table rested what remained of the wooden leg that had kept him balanced. His teeth again clenched tight at the mess of wooden parts tossed across the table, recalling the sound of two gunshots shattering the ankle joint when he refused to go down on his knees. Edward found himself too busy cursing his mangled situation to be thankful that the man had not shot out the other ankle in the fight to bring him down.

The wall was not cold enough; no matter how hard Ed pushed his back into it, the chill did no good. Focusing on the clock, Edward struggled to watch the seconds move; nearly ten minutes had passed since he'd lost…

He couldn't allow himself to focus on that. So, he thought again, how could he get from where he sat to beyond that door without having a gunshot fired his way. Those anticipated shots would come from three men at the other table, tucked away in the far corner. But, they were so preoccupied with their new toy he could have easily made the dash, if only…

Shifting, Edward winced as he pushed the bare shoulder blade against the wall, it took all of his effort to see the sharp angles of the door clearly through the distorted blur disrupting his vision, let along the clock. He wondered, in the time since the muddied leather boot crossed his face, through the horrid moments he'd been pinned to the cement, face down in his own blood, until he'd finally realized the pain in his chest was because he was still breathing and had sat up, if he'd simply gotten use to this feeling, or if it had honestly subsided. It was a long ten minutes since that happened. What he did know, was that feeling was fuelling the numbness slowly creeping across his body.

Clearly, he could recall the body weight of the arms and legs pinning him at his neck, and at his shoulders, not forgetting the kneecap that dug into the small of his back. He couldn't bring himself to think about the last screw in the back of his shoulder blade, pulled out like all the others as his captors mused themselves by dissecting him.

Again, wiping the sweat from his face, Edward suddenly found himself face flat against the cement floor, never feeling the impact of his own metal forearm hurled against the side of his head.

"You're still ticking over there boy?"

The unsteady hand pushed his chest off the ground amidst the laughter and cigarette smoke filling the room. With every last ounce he could manage, Edward forced himself to balance upon his leg stump and kneecap, hunched over the arm balancing his position. The rancid sound of laughter emanated from the round table of three men gathered in the reclusive corner. He did not know their names, they referred to each other in code; nor did he recognize their faces from anywhere. They reminded him of the thugs who'd escorted Adolf to the stage during the gathering his members had crashed, yet they wore no sign of allegiance. They had spoken casually throughout the night, laughing, and occasionally getting up to remind Edward he belonged on the floor. And then they asked about his right arm, Edward almost wished he hadn't knocked out so many of a fourth man's teeth; but at least that abuser eventually left the room.

Ed did not hear the chair legs scraping against the cement as one man stood up, but he heard the alarming sound of approaching footsteps, and then felt the hand wrap around his ponytail. His eyes clenched, begging his body for some sort of stamina. Lurched upright, the only thing that came to him was the strength to have his left hand gripped around the bothersome wrist.

"Still hanging around, eh?"

Edward's arm slipped from the wrist that jostled him as he found himself sitting on the floor once again. Though his hair remained gripped, he still refused to give the man the satisfaction of his voice. The moment the first warning shot was fired his way, he'd taken every last ounce of strength and dignity and refused to let anyone hear this pain.

"If you're so interested in staying part of our conversation for a bit longer, why don't you tell us who made that for ya?"

Ed's rigid gaze tore back up at the man, watching as he spun the cigarette in his teeth. His head hurt enough; no amount of pulling his _hair_ could make it any worse. The new gash where blood trickled down his face should have held a lasting sting, but there was a gaping wound at his empty shoulder slowly numbing his body that took precedence. His loose fingertips swept over the ground, finally taking hold of the dismembered forearm thrown at him moments before. Edward asked the horrid sickness churning in his stomach to relent, the exhausted tremble in the nerves of his body to cease, and the ache behind his eyes to ease long enough for him to utilize the fragment of pride held in his hand.

"Come on now," one of the two at the table called out as he flicked the ash from his cigarette. His free hand rose high into the air, holding the right hand they'd disconnected from Edward's AutoMail, the lengths of wiring dangled from it, "can't let someone selfishly hang around with us unless he's willing to share."

Again, the oppressive hand jostled Ed's by his hair, "I haven't slit your vocal cords just yet, so why don't you offer up an answer."

From where he sat, Ed turned his right side against the wall, planting his foot at the baseboards to hold his balance. He hated the unsettling feeling of his heart racing. He hated that the sweat in his palm was not washing away the blood drying on his fingers. Far more than that, he hated a situation beyond his control. Edward lifted his bitterly raging gaze up to the man standing over him.

"I made it," his lips slowly curled into a sneer.

"You?" the brow of the man looking down upon him rose.

The laughter again erupted from his captors. The man holding Edward's hair crouched down beside him until they were nearly at eye level, "You made all this? You want us to believe this?"

"Well, I based it off of some girl's design," he quipped, holding his sneer in check as the men's laughter grew louder.

"A woman is not smart enough to conceive of something like this," the other of two seated men announced.

Edward's nose curled, tasting the noxious fumes of tobacco flowing from the mouth that laughed in his face, "What? Did she make her design out of pots, pans, and canisters?"

Ed threw away the metal forearm in one swift swing of his left arm and watched as it skidded across the floor. His arm motion followed through until his clenched fist stopped, slamming against the kneecap of the man still gripping his hair.

"There are four metal rods that run along the back of that forearm. One for each finger," Edward's raging gaze again drifted into the dilated pupils of the man that looked down on him. Under no uncertain circumstances would he allow exhaustion to submit him just yet, "even if I couldn't make it work too well, the wires provide part of the nervous system connected to the muscles moving the fingers. The rods are just over 15 centimetres long and they're supposed to be only five millimetres in diameter. Mine are nearly double that width since I couldn't find any copper wiring thin enough to hold a decent current."

The man remained frozen beneath the low, searing voice Edward carried. Shifting from where he sat, Ed rose until he perched nose to nose with his opponent, "They're pinched at the ends so the wires don't shift, bunch up, or get caught up in the mechanics."

His teeth grit, Ed ripped the metal rod out from the man's knee joint, having jammed it into him moments before. Looking on, Ed snarled as the man's expression widened at the rushing pain.

"So they're a bit sharp."

The men at the table slowly rose from their seats, eyes widening as their companion holding Edward at bay let out a furious wail. The screaming voice vanished as quickly as it had started, the man suddenly thrown on his back as Edward threw himself headlong into his chest.

Holding his position silently, Ed would be the only one aware of his exhausted, trembling nerves. The determination and flowing ferocity radiated out from behind the tangled mess of hair that had fallen in his face. The stump of his left leg pressing into the man's gut, the right leg planted on the ground for balance. Edward's left fist pressed against his opponent's shoulder, the rods taken from the forearm gripped between his fingers and buried deep within the body he'd pinned.

"I knew a woman whose claws worked something like this. She was inhuman like you and the rest of this world seems to be," he ripped out two of the three remaining metal spears. While his eyes watched as the man grabbed at the third, Edward quickly stripped him of the firearm at his belt, "Yet she was more human than you could ever hope to be."

Quickly sitting back, Edward raised his arm as one of the comrades moved to defend his partner, swinging the length of metal chain down over him. Ed's hand remained tightly gripped around the weapon he'd taken, allowing the chain to snake around his protective arm.

His golden eyes now trained on the second man entering the challenge of survival.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the voice echoed viciously within the confines of the room.

"Sorry," his arm stiffened and the sole of his shoe gripped the cement floor, preventing him from sliding as the second opponent jerked the chain tangled around Edward's last defence.

"I can't die here."

* * *

Silence always held some resemblance of peace, but the silent darkness Al ran through only captivated his fear. It was the only thing he could see, the silent darkness, which was interrupted only by his footsteps, which made Al hope to never hear whatever might be approaching.

Alphonse could not see everything he'd tripped over, and some part of him was grateful for that. Each time his hands and knees came crashing down to the ground, he didn't want to know what it was that his fingers were touching on the floor. He didn't know if he'd been followed; he couldn't remember how long he'd been going, but the escape route was finally above his head and he simply needed to take a moment to breathe.

He'd had no idea where Wrath had gone; his instinct had taken him down each hall whenever it came time for him to turn left or right. If he'd had time to worry about it, he would have asked himself why such a maze existed beneath this remote town.

Taking hold of the chilled, damp metal rail, Al made his way up the ladder, nearly smacking his head when the seal weighed far more than he'd expected. Finally pushing the manhole cover out of his way, the rush of water pooled in the street flooded down as he slipped out. His feet still dangling inside the cavity, Alphonse looked around at the township, somewhat surprised to find himself sitting in the middle of the road.

There wasn't a running car or face in a window to question why he sat there. Soon standing, Al began his walk down the centre of a ghost town. It was one thing to have driven through it with the car full of people; it was another to stand alone in the middle of it. The rain was no lighter than before, and the wind still cut a bitter path through town. He wished the sun was out, at least then he would be able to figure out which way was east and west.

Footsteps trampled the constant sound of rainfall. Al dashed from the middle of the road where everyone could possibly see him and ducked into the space between two darkened houses that lined the street. Voices, as faint as whispers, accompanied the parade of feet splashing along the ground. Obscured by the shadows and hidden behind the trash, Al crouched, watching as the men, dressed in black and wielding rifles, fanned out into the street.

Confused to begin with and uncertain over what these militants were doing, Al took some relief by watching them move away from where he hid. He slipped deeper into the shadows of the alleyway until he was certain that they could not see him move. Al's hand darted into his pocket. Finally, with fist clenched, he turned to disappear.

"Unfortunately…"

Alphonse froze, his eyes suddenly focused on the tip of a riffle.

"… your free reign in this city stops here."

The rainfall echoed off the damp, brick walls as the the stem of white chalk in Al's hand slipped form his fingertips, shattering against the cement. Petrified to move his body, the younger Elric locked his pinpoint grey eyes, focusing them on the daunting figure of a man towering over him.

"You're that boy staying in the ministerial house."

The weight of rainwater began to slip from his hair and run down his face. Stiffening his body, Alphonse gave his own statement.

"You're that man from the Central market explosion."

"Oh?" his posture loosened with curiosity, brushing a damp clump of hair from his forehead.

Slowly Al shifted, straightening his posture a little more, "Is there a reason you're in this city?"

"You've missed something," his voice almost seemed to laugh while he realigned the weapon in hand, "I'm the one asking the questions."

Looking out from beneath his brow, Alphonse shifted his weight, waiting for the interrogative question. The rainfall provided a nearly deafening echo.

"Where did she take them?"

"Who?" Al's eyes narrowed curiously.

"That woman."

Al could only squint with confusion at the question, "Major Hawkeye?"

"Are you playing stupid with me boy?"

"Marcus!" the call came from a body blackened by the light filtering in around him at the end of the alley, "They're moving down the 8th street corridor!"

His face burdened with obvious frustration, the man holding Al frozen finally let out a disgruntled sigh, "Only two blocks? Alright."

The man's strong grip took hold of Alphonse high on his arm. Throwing the Elric deeper into the alleyway, Al staggered to catch his steps, trying not to let the man's movements out of his sight. As much as he wanted to run, wanted to defend himself, he did not dare; he did not want to know what the world might be like if the rifle, trained on his movements, discharged.

"Walk."

Al straightened, watching as the man motioned with his firearm for him to move deeper into the alley. Silent, he turned, grey eyes focusing on the figure of the companion still positioned at the corridor's exit. Their footsteps moved closer but the figure remained motionless; Al watched the stout, unwavering figure stand in their path until finally the man showed signs of life and folded his arms. Even if Alphonse could not see his face clearly, he could feel the unimpressed look cast back upon him.

"And you're expecting him not to run off?"

The footsteps that had pushed him forwards suddenly vanished, Al's movements stopped at the disappearance of the sound. The silence of both men standing in the pounding rain took only moments to set off every alarm bell in his head. Alphonse spun on his heels, as though he stood on ice. He wouldn't have enough time to see; the shiver shot up his spine faster than he could lift his arm in defense, Al found himself ripped off his feet, dropped to the cement floor as the butt end of the rifle cracked across his face.

He didn't feel his body hit the ground. With his forehead against the road, his hands clawed at the side of his face. The torrent pain bled through his skull, burning at the side of his face. Centered at his left cheek, the sensation leaked into his body until it filled his head and tingled down his neck. The sound of the rain vanished, as did the recognition of the wind's chill. Their voices echoed around him, never entering into his mind. He had no idea what to do with this feeling, he knew his knees were on the ground and his head pressed into the dirty road, but his sense of balance told him he was upside down. Then, that same sense of shaken balance told him 'no' as he tried to push to his hands and knees, only to end up slipping like a fish out of water, flopping again, unable to hold himself steady.

Izumi had hit him before, she'd clocked him good more than once, but he'd never been unable to pick himself up before. He'd never opened his eyes and seen the world through a thick, white haze. Alphonse could not explain why his eyes watered so badly the tears ran over his face, disguised by the rainwater already drenching in his face.

Again, his hands and knees slipped in the water. Al moved his jaw, his breath flowed, but he could not get his tongue to release a single word for anyone to hear.

The disassociation he felt from his own body grew, until the muscular hands grabbed under his arms, hauling him up off the saturated ground. Alphonse barely felt the cement as he inexplicably fell back to the ground. The hands that lifted him had promptly released him. He couldn't hear it, but Al was sure the world existed outside of the pounding between his ears. Opening his eyes hurt, so he wouldn't bother.

He wanted to flinch when the sounds of the rifle discharging invaded the silent world forced upon him.

He wanted to ask if someone had fallen after the echo of shots ceased accosting the block in his head.

He wanted to know who picked him up afterwards, because it wasn't the same two hands that let him fall moments before.

* * *

It was the no choice option that stripped him of the level of morality Ed believed he upheld. Existing in a world where the dignity of human life carried a market value did not make it easier to accept how he'd wilfully broken himself. It had merely corrupted him, and made it easier for the muscles in his hand to move.

Edward fired first, knowing that he did not have a second hand to combat the free arm that would attempt to change his string of fate. The man withered as the shot tore through his shoulder, dropping the chain which interfered with his movements.

The only conscious thought that passed into his mind was the one asking if his Sensei would be disappointed in him.

There was no 'one is all, all is one'. The earth was ravaged and it was survival of the quickest: quickest to think, quickest to act, quickest to move, quickest to run, quickest to take, quickest to fire. The human decency that haunted Mustang when could not finish him off during Edward's State Alchemist review had no business being in this room; and Ed fired a second time.

His shot entered through the man's eye as he lurched forwards again. Ed's arm suddenly trembled from the recoil. His outstretched arm was held in midair, frozen by his own actions, watching as the body hit the ground with a lifeless thud. Eyes wide, only able to see the results of his defensive action, Edward never saw the boot that whipped across his face, knocking him flat on his side.

"You son of a bitch!"

Slowly rolling his body, Ed spat out the blood in his mouth, watching through the clump of hair in his face as the last, uninjured captor crouched next to the comrade's side. Weapon in hand, Edward dug his fist into the ground and pushed himself until he sat once again. His tired body felt numb; it was inhuman to feel this way, he concluded. Ed composed a bizarre speech in his head, one that started with 'don't move' as he'd point the gun at the third and final person within his company.

"Eye for an eye."

Not wondering why it hurt to breathe, Ed found himself with his gun trained forward once again, expecting to be the one who'd spoken and not prepared to have a weapon pointed back at him.

His eyes slit, "'Equivalent exchange' doesn't work like that."

The gunshot rang out, stopping Edward's heart; he was the only one who knew that he would have been unable to pull the trigger a third time. His hand went numb, a sensation that slowly crippled his whole body. He scolded himself: how unmanly, how uncomposed, how disgusting, wanting to shed tears because he'd not been able to fire the weapon in his hand. The splattering of blood across his face felt oddly warm as it ran down his cheek. The muscles in his arm began to tremble and the weapon in his fingertips clattered against the cement floor. Edward's eyes remained fixated upon the face of a man who could no longer look back at him, the explosive bullet that rang out in the room had gone clear through the back of the man's head and exited through his eye. Disbelief kept Ed's attention upon a gruesome figure; he'd heard the bullet sail past him, but could have sworn that the sound cut through only him.

The suddenly dead body crumpled over. Ed tried to catch it, but ended up falling onto the cement floor beneath it. A wary set of gold eyes rolled away, towards an indistinguishable sound; Ed's tilted, upside down view of the room saw the last of the three men scrambling upon bloodied hands and knees towards him. Edward lay motionless, momentarily unable to draw the conclusion for why the man was rushing towards him in that manner. Disconnected from the thoughts that kept his mind lost, Edward found himself quickly pulling out from beneath the fallen body, his hand slamming down over the firearm on the ground between he and the person moving for it.

Ed swore that he could almost make out his own refection in the polished shine of the black shoe that stepped in his way, pinning his hand to the floor. The eyes of the man who once held an empty rage for him looked up from his knees to the figure impeding progress. The man was only given enough time to see the room's light glance off the silver casing that released two shots into his forehead.

Robbed of existence, the body collapsed to the ground at the same time Edward's head came to rest upon the floor. He watched vacantly as a pool of blood formed on the ground, dying the dirty blonde hair of his last aggressor a filthy colour. Nothing disturbed his bird's eye view of death's door until a set of hands slipped the heavy piece of metal from his grasp.

"Edward?"

The most familiar voice he could have asked for stopped the replay of the last minutes in his mind. He pushed himself onto an elbow, spitting the taste of blood from his mouth. A firm grasp took hold, his father's hand held beneath the only arm he had and hoisted him upright. Edward's single hand clung desperately to his father's shoulder, trying to remain balanced. His eyes downcast toward the bludgeoned mess across the floor, the empty looks of death in the three bodies close enough to touch.

In the corner, a mangled attempt at reconciling a part of life left behind lay useless upon the floor.

"Edward?" it must have been the fourth time his father had asked for his attention, and not until Hohenheim's palm slapped his cheek did he even realize where the voice was coming from.

"Dad?"

His wide eyes turned to watch the strong hand hook the top button through the jacket eyelet. When did his father's coat end up on his shoulders? Hohenheim's free hand brushed over his son's pale face, wiping away the red mess thrown across his complexion. Too numb to acknowledge the touch, Ed's eyes carried away, glancing around at the Thule members his father had brought with him. For a brief, inexplicable moment, the German voices of those companions became untranslatable. His wide expression could only look about, unable to wrap his mind around what was being asked of him.

His gaze trembled slightly, looking down at the first bled out body fallen to the ground. That could have been him; but he was the executioner. The hallow eyes were still open, wide in surprise of their own death. A hallow, ghostly emptiness carried directly back into Edward's eyes; the existence of death that swelled in this vision and held the Elric at it's mercy, unable to step away…

It was the sense of familiarity that finally interrupted Edward's thoughts. It rose up from beneath the fear of death lying before him; a warm and a quiet sound he instinctively knew to listen for. It lured him from one setting and lulled him into another. Ed couldn't quite place the sound, or where it came from, it merely existed as the faint remembrance of a dream not allowed in this world. It was an unchanging and familiar constant, as secure as the arms that could embrace him. Once upon a time, the world had been safer this way. He listened, carefully, the mind's eye covering a wide-open gaze. He knew this verse.

A hand brushed through his hair as the clarity between this world and one he could hardly remember slowly disintegrated.

Edward did not fall down, even when his hand let go.

* * *

Bright blue eyes stared up towards where the sun was balanced in the sky, having not yet risen above the peaks of the spruce trees towering stories above her. With the bird's welcoming voice, she stepped out into a light breeze that flicked the hemline of her dress.

Her sandals scraped over the cement that soon turned into a clay bed, each step made carefully to avoid crushing the pinecones that rested contently against the earth's warm surface. After no more than thirty steps the clay vanished beneath a thick bed of white sand. Standing at this edge, the fascinated eyes looked out upon the smooth surface of the lake not yet disturbed, the wilderness laid out before her beyond the lake reflected back upon itself in the water's natural mirror.

Slipping out of her sandals and stepping into the heated sand, the young mind wasted no time avoiding the assault of the cooked pebbles, rushing until her feet splashed into the crystal glaze of the lake's edge, unable to disturb the entirety of the smooth, liquid surface. She found herself squealing, delighted by the water's chill. The world was too hot from 8am to 9pm, she'd rarely venture outside after her first encounter with the sun.

But this, this was a good idea. Turning back to look at the cabin, showered in sunlight filtering in through the pine surrounding it, she ran out of the water nearly as soon as she'd entered. The collection of sand on her soaked feet and ankles grew as she scampered towards the old wooden dock. Rushing onto it, each step along the platform released a spray of sand, her movements echoing off the water beneath the platform. The end of the dock was simply a formality, she could have jumped off either side; but it was more appropriate to jump off the end of the dock, fully clothed, into the cool, crystal water.

"Brigitte?" the woman's head poked out her door moments after the sound of the splash came through the window, "Brigitte?"

A tiny voice echoed off the lake.

With a sigh, Maria took a barefoot stroll down the backyard embankment towards a pair of empty sandals and the sound of a girl's voice, "Are you alright?"

A soaken, wide-eyed expression floated out from around the pier.

Raising an eyebrow, the lieutenant, dressed only in jean shorts and a white tank top, came to a stop at the water's edge.

"What are you doing?" she didn't want to giggle, but the sound found a way into her words.

Though sheepish, Brigitte's triumphant grin ran across her face as she let her body float up to the surface.

Even if Maria did not understand the motive, the situation looked foolish enough that she couldn't help but laugh and shake her head. Finally forcing a stern sound into her voice, she addressed her young companion once again.

"Get out of the water, you have all your clothes on."

Brigitte's eyes flickered over, the language barrier would exist at her discretion today, and she would ignore the tone of voice her own mother used and paddle her feet instead.

"Well," Lt. Ross tilted her head, a smile on her face as she sighed, "at least this is better than last night."

Last night had been nearly sleepless. Maria had spent an hour trying to coax the girl out of the back seat of the car, and Brigitte had only relented after the vehicle heated up thanks to the glaring sun. She'd fought with her to get her into the house, to pry her out of the corner, to get her to eat anything, to silence the fit she'd try to throw whenever Maria had gotten close. The behaviour, the officer realized, was her own fault. Brigitte hadn't started acting up until she'd removed the bandages and washed the makeup off her face.

50 kilometres outside Central, they were scheduled to change transports, in the process, the pair slipped away. Maria knew the location Broche would be waiting and Havoc had slipped the paperwork for his temporary assignment in that township through days earlier. With no time to waste, Brigitte was stuffed into the back seat of Broche's car and Maria flew in and out of the gas station washroom. The moment the lieutenant started the engine and looked over her shoulder, Brigitte curled away into the backseat, suddenly realizing this woman had spent the previous 24 hours deceiving her.

Broche remained behind, his superior taking the car out to the lakeside cabin her family used during the summers she'd been a teenager.

The car stopped at its 'middle of nowhere' location and the woman who'd lured Brigitte into feeling secure tried to convince her to go into the house. The young teenager's fit started and continued for the remainder of the day.

Maria had finally gotten her into the house, but left the girl huddled up in a corner. At 10:30 that night she'd thrown her hands up in frustration, surrendered for the evening, and moved the plate of dinner cooked hours earlier to the floor in front of a silent fireplace. Leaving a blanket and pillow on the rug next to the meal, Maria announced the teenager could sleep wherever the hell she wanted and spent the next hour nursing a headache on the back porch.

Just before the clock struck midnight she came back inside, her relieved expression turning to the girlish figure curled up atop the blanket and pillow, and the plate of food finished. Maria sat down on the floor next to a set of shining blue eyes that had been analyzing her every step. With a sigh, she suggested the sofa was more comfortable than the floor, and then apologized for the cold dinner, even if Brigitte would never understand.

Now sitting at the tip of the pier, her chin resting in hand, Maria watched Brigitte as she paddled about.

"I bet all the wood for the fire pit's rotted by now," Maria's finger scratched her chin, her bare feet dangling in the water.

"_Hey lady_," Brigitte called out, waiting until she had her undivided attention, "_I'd like to see you jump in the water too_."

Maria narrowed an eye in confusion, "What?" she glanced at her watch, "Do you want lunch?"

With the kick of her feet, Brigitte floated back towards the pier, "_My aunt use to do things like that_."

Wrinkling her nose, not sure what the girl was going on about, Maria continued on, "I put a loaf of bread on the counter and peanut butter in the cupboard…"

"_Dammit lady, jump in the water_," Brigitte kicked her feet up and sprayed the officer as she thumped her feet against the top of the water.

"What are you d-?" scrambling to her feet, Maria backed off down the pier, shaking the water from her hair, "don't do that!"

Straightening and floating back from the ledge, Brigitte's hands patted the water's surface, deepening her voice theatrically, "_I will not tattle on you_."

Scowling, and slightly more confused, Maria slid her feet along the wooden planks of the pier until she stood at its edge once more. Crouching down, she held her frown over Brigitte, "I have no idea what you want."

Again, she began patting the water's surface, a foolish grin crossing her face as Brigitte allowed her body to float to the surface again, "_Well, I tried. I didn't think you'd come in anyways_."

Raising an eyebrow, Maria's confusion persisted until she found herself sitting dockside, sweeping her feet through the water again.

* * *

He couldn't sleep. As much as he wished for it, he couldn't shut his eyes. He'd shut his eyes and it would be his ears that played tricks on him before his minds eye would; he could not stand the murderous echo vibrating in his head. But, even though he'd kept his eyes open, Ed hadn't seen the sunrise or the sunset. It felt like the pre-dawn hour he'd last experienced, but it was post-dusk, and grudgingly he'd accepted the numerous missing hours. But, time slowed to a crawl as he lay exhausted atop the bed sheets. By the time midnight came, he felt as though he'd existed for that missed time, and then some.

Deliberately, he hadn't ask how he'd gotten from that place to the hospital bed; though, he'd nearly blurted the question when he'd awoken, but withheld it when his father's hand instructed him to lay back down. Frustrated, he'd dismissed his father from his presence the moment he'd given his son the gentle 'sympathetic father gaze'; he did not want that from him. Ed had finally gotten that look removed from Hohenheim's repertoire of expressions the man would bestow upon him. The gaze dogged him around London for too long and the last thing he wanted was the man's pity again.

Lying on his back, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Edward only listened as Winry prattled on around him. He couldn't remember when she'd gotten there and began mulling about with her grossly transparent, cheerful guise.

What finally caught his attention was how she sighed, and Ed picked his head up.

"Why don't I just make you a new one?" she giggled sheepishly, giving a kick to the pieces of wooden leg scattered on the floor, "the wood wasn't properly treated anyways, it was rotting a little inside."

Ed's head fell back onto the pillow, his arm fallen over his open eyes; he couldn't understand why she was still at the hospital so late at night, "Alright."

"It shouldn't take me long," smoothing the bottom of her skirt, Winry sat down on the side of the hospital room bed, "a replacement limb is just screws, coils and some woodwork, it's simpler than AutoMail. I just need to find a hardware store."

"Ask Dad," Ed mumbled, energy lacking from his voice, "I'm sure he'll take you."

Coming into existence once again was the silence; the silence Winry hated to hear from Ed. His silence was far louder than his words ever were, and his discontented silence always seemed to rage around the room. She looked out the window, through the autumn leaves of the trees and into the midnight sky, running out of things to say to stop an uncomfortable evening.

"This evening, when your dad picked me up from the Haushofer's and we went home for a bit... Mr. Oberth called for you," she paused, only long enough to realize he wouldn't respond, "he wants to see you after you come home, since you don't want him to come here to visit."

"Nosy bastard," he murmured through grated teeth.

"Ed," Winry's tone turned harsh, Edward's general discontent egging her on, "don't talk about your friends that way. He's only worried about you like everyone else has been."

He didn't respond; Ed simply remained silent, laid upon his back in the hospital bed.

Eyes soft in thought, Winry returned to staring out the window, "What's wrong with the hospital? Is there a reason you don't like them?"

"What gave you that idea?"

Weaving her fingers through the hair pinned to her head, Winry turned her eyes upon him, "When we picked up something to eat, your dad said that you didn't like hospitals too much," an eyebrow rose in curiosity as Edward's arm lifted from his face, "but I saw you in the Amestris hospital and you weren't this miserable."

Edward held the limb above his face, following the length of forearm speckled with purple bruising until he focused on his hand. He turned the arm over, examining the palm of his hand until Winry snatched it from his attention, gripping his hand tightly and pulling until he'd sat up.

"I brought you something," Winry grinned and slipped off the bed.

Taking his hand back, Ed narrowed an eye at her as she began digging through the bag she'd managed to stuff until the seams nearly burst. Dumping the tools and bit parts she'd fit inside, much to Ed's horror, she began pulling out what filled the most space.

"While we were home, your dad said that you were in a hospital in London once and that's why the lady gave you this," Winry wrapped the blanket Ed had placed on her bed weeks ago over her shoulders, forcefully unfazed by Ed's gaping reaction.

"What the hell did he tell you?" his voice snapped.

Narrowing her eyes, Winry gave a sharp sigh, a juvenile tone in her voice, "That you were in a hospital in London once and that the lady, who was a friend of your dad's, gave you this as a feel better present."

Side glancing out the window, gathering his thoughts, Edward sighed finally and returned his attention to Winry, "Put it back on your bed, I'm going home soon, I don't need it."

"Just enjoy it for the night," she swung it off her shoulders, "see, it's pretty and colourful and-"

"I don't need any more sheets," his hand gripped the bed, "there's plenty here."

Scowling back at him, Winry clenched the quilt in her hand, "Humour me and take the blanket, Ed."

"I don't need the damned quilt, Winry!"

"No, you don't need it!" she bit back, "you need a slap in the face, but if I tried to hit you you'd fall over and that would defeat the purpose of slapping you because you'd be on the ground angry that you're on the ground and NOT worried over why I slapped you!"

"Huh?" Ed's face twisted, "slap me? What the hell for?"

"For being so selfish!"

"How am I being selfish?"

Wrinkling the blanket up in her two hands, Winry held it over her head and threw it at him, watching as the ball of cloth unbundled as he tried to block it, "You just want to sit here, be miserable, and leave everyone who's worried about you as far away as possible. Me, your dad, his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Oberth; that's not fair to us! I hope that 'comfort blanket' gives you some companionship while you sit there all miserable and lonely, because I'm not going to do it anymore!"

"…Winry!"

"Talk to me again when you remember how old you are!"

"Winry!"

"You never listen to me!"

"WINRY!"

Her hand gripped the door handle, her tight, frustrated expression glaring back over her shoulder at him, "WHAT?"

Ed found himself sitting high, the quilt gripped in his left hand, and his mouth open with something to say, but finding no voice to say it with. Winry's grip slipped away from the handle as she watched Ed mull over his thoughts, slowly turning back into the room.

"I got the quilt from Mrs. Churchill when I was in the hospital, just after I crossed the Gate and ended up in London. I gave you the quilt when you were in our house, just after you'd come through the Gate and ended up in Munich. Couldn't you find-"

"Sorry."

Her voice blurted out suddenly, startling herself, and her voice vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She'd cut him off, but long before she had, she started realizing what he was saying. It was Winry who'd create the silence this time, having made a frustrating situation even worse.

Turning, her feet brushing against the floor as she moved back towards the side of the bed, "I'm sorry."

Ed pushed the bundle of fabric out of his lap, "I need two hands to fold it."

"I'll fold it," her hand swept the quilt off the bed, holding it carefully at the corners as she folded it across her chest. Ed sat silent, watching from the corner of his eye until she finally placed the quilt at the foot of his bed.

"Once you're standing, I think we should go for a walk."

"What for?" Ed's expression lifted at the question, "Where?"

"Anywhere," smoothing the fabric, Winry sat down on the bed, her gaze carrying out the window once more, "I don't particularly care where we go, but I'd like to just walk away, and keep walking until something different turns up."

Ed offered no response to the suggestion, only his silence yet again while time allowed their thoughts to drift.

"You keep the quilt folded like that at the foot of your bed."

Winry turned over her shoulder, watching as Edward's gaze rose from the folding job, "When we lived in London, I slept in the living room more often than not."

She watched, as the gaze in his eyes never seemed to return to the present.

"And Dad kept it folded over the back of the couch."

* * *

"Don't flinch."

There wasn't enough desire to open his eyes, or to even force himself back to consciousness. Alphonse let the voice echo in his mind as a gentle, cold touch came over his cheek.

He flinched again.

Whatever voices he heard remained as echoes in the backdrop. None of them setting off alarms in his head, the sense of comfort and security erased his concern. Alphonse tried to understand the low voices holding broken and disappearing discussions around the noise of a rickety, bouncing carriage. One voice suddenly resonated over his right ear; clear, concise, and familiar.

Alphonse's eyes cracked open, lifting his head from the cushion he rested on, "… Sensei?"

The cold, damp towel wrapped around a firm hand came over the sore cheek, "And you woke up anyways?"

Unable to see clearly, the only way he could move was to roll onto his back. With his legs sprawling out over the floor of the carriage, Al's gaze looked straight up to the hide covering their transport. Head resting in his bundled up jacket within her lap, between he and the covering were the eyes of his sensei looking back down at him.

Her smile formed, somewhat crooked as the young Elric's gawked back up at her, unable to form words in his mouth.

"You're going to have a headache," Izumi looked back down on him, "you should go back to sleep."

"What happened?"

The question was too broad for any one particular answer. Even if he had been more specific, it would not have drawn an answer out of her, "Don't worry about that right now."

"Where are we?" Al began to sit up until Izumi's hand clasped over his forehead and returned his head to the resting spot in her lap.

"Alphonse," Izumi's eyebrow gave a warning twitch, "didn't you hear what I just said?"

Letting go of the tension pinching his face, shoulders and back, Al gave in to the incontestable demand. Her hand, cradling a cool cloth, held his head where the rifle's end had landed on him. The numbing chill felt nice over a spot on his cheekbone fully swollen.

"Sensei…"

She hesitated with her response, though finally acknowledging him, "Hm?"

"Where've you been?"

It was an understandable question; he had every right to make it. She would have apologized to him if she'd not felt justified in her actions. Izumi's unburdened hand brushed over his matted hair, cautious with her answer.

"I was at the Ishibal settlement."

The road turned to gravel beneath them, the carriage beginning to bounce unsteadily as Al lay silent. The answer was nothing like he'd envisioned, though he didn't know exactly what he'd wanted to hear for an answer.

"Why?"

"If I have to tell you again to stop asking questions," her voice was sharp, "I'm going to dump you off the side of the carriage."

Alphonse took the hint and fell silent again. She wanted him to rest but there was suddenly no way he could. There was things he needed to know, wanted to ask, wanted to share, had to tell… she couldn't expect him to simply lay there?

"I saw Wrath again," the words slipped from his mouth, needing to keep some line of communication open with Izumi for even a little longer.

"I know."

"He told me something strange about the Gate…" Alphonse's voice softened when Izumi's hand came to rest at the corner of his jaw, as though to silence him, "and something about my dad."

There would be a more appropriate place and time to discuss this, Izumi thought. Her own curiosity for what Wrath knew would have to wait; she'd heed her own advice and not voluntarily start the questions.

"And Winry's missing."

"I know."

A hint of frustration emerged Al's words, "How do you know?"

"Your friends told me," Izumi's tone would remain steady and smooth.

The gravel path gave way to concrete again and the sound of the leading horses hooves began to echo, "Are they alright?"

"Everyone's fine."

Suddenly stiff, Alphonse moved from his resting place; finally able to steady himself with the ground he stat on, he rose to his knees, "Where are they?"

Frowning, Izumi's cloth hand slapped over Al's cheek, "Alphonse, we can discuss things in the morning."

It was the first time Al had realized that it was dark outside the beige cover of the carriage. Absorbing his surroundings and the familiar, resting bodies searching for sleep, Al's attention refocused on his sensei. Expecting to find her scowl searing back at him, he took a minute to burn the image of her frustrated, weary and sympathetic expression into his mind. Her other hand moved to adjust the brown and orange shawl that wrapped over her shoulders.

"I want to discuss them now," jaw quivering as he tightened it, Al's hand feverishly scratched his head, "y-you disappear, you leave me in Central to go to Ishibal?"

"… That's not what I said."

"No one can find you, you could have been dead, and then you just _show up_ and expect me not to think anything of it?"

Izumi sighed, her eyes focusing on the trembling, harsh expression Alphonse bestowed upon her. Her own ferocious gaze would always over power his, except that she didn't look back upon him with that in her eyes. Sliding to her knees, Izumi's arms came to wrap around his neck and shoulders. The youngest Elric would not surprise her with how easily his forehead fell against her shoulder, her fingers buried in his hair.

"Yes, I do."

* * *

Quiet, Hohenheim stood in the centre of the room.

He wondered if his son had slept. He wondered if he'd eaten. He wondered those, and many other things he'd been unable to do himself.

The pleasant morning was a cruel backdrop for the raging thunderstorm existing within the confines of the room. Hohenheim again wondered if Edward was lucid enough to understand he should not have won the argument. Unlike London, Edward was old enough to demand his own hospital release in the coming afternoon. Much to the protest of his father and most everyone else, Ed dictated he would come home at four that afternoon and not remain in a place that did nothing but remind him how he'd gotten there.

It drove the father mad that he was refusing to stay in the hospital's care. There was no way for Hohenheim to convey the instances fused to the forefront of his thoughts; the ones that wanted Ed kept under the care of people far more capable of ensuring his well being. The perception of events that had come to pass was different between father and son. Where Edward knew what had gone through his own mind the moment the gun had been pointed in his face, Hohenheim got to see the look in his sons eyes when he thought he was going to die. Where Edward struggled to relinquish himself from the events in _that_ room, Hohenheim got to hold him when he finally let go. Where Edward was allowed to exist in unconscious freedom, Hohenheim was given the painful task of taking him somewhere far safer.

Something far too traumatic exists as the barrier between personal experience and verbal discourse when a father carries his injured son away; without knowing how badly he has been hurt, without having a way to have prevented it, but knowing the circumstances arose from the father's soiled hands.

Again, at the edge of the bed, Edward sat; cut, scraped, stitched, bandaged, and horribly unbalanced. Yet, the orange fire raged in his eyes once more. The argument they'd fought had occurred first thing that morning and had ended with Hohenheim marching out of the room at mid verbal-volley. The trait the father possessed that the son did not, was the ability to diffuse a situation by walking away.

However, the trait the father had passed onto his son was the stubborn, solid backbone that did not allow either to back down. Hohenheim finally returned with his trump card, and he'd placed it at the foot of the bed.

Ed's eyes rose from the bed, looking in below the rim of his father's glasses as the old man cast his stern gaze back to the boiling son.

"You don't honestly expect me…"

His arms rose, folding across his chest as Hohenheim looked down towards Edward as he manoeuvred awkwardly where he sat.

"Take the tickets and go."

"You can't be that senile," Ed wished he could kick something, or throw the tickets laying out of his reach back at his father, "I'm not going to London."

"I told Winry you were taking her to London…"

"Just who the hell do you think you are?" Edward's voice raged again.

"… and she's looking forward to going somewhere where she can speak the language."

The strength of his clenched fist could have shattered something, "Did you slip into a coma and forget how many times I've told you that this isn't going to happen? Are you deaf maybe? You can't just decide these things for me."

"But I am your father, I ca-"

"Don't start that _father_ bullshit with me," Edward's raging gaze clashed fiercely with the stone-cold, unwavering look Hohenheim carried, "you have never been my father."

The old man's eyebrows rose, "You call me 'Dad' now."

"I'd call you 'ass hole' for all the good it would do me," Edward barked.

"And you use to call me 'Daddy' when you barely stood taller than my kneecap."

The conversation itself ignited Ed's rage, and the indestructible, unwavering tone Hohenheim conducted their discussion with only fuelled it.

"Yeah, and that 'Daddy' walked out one day and never came back. He never came back to see his children grow up, he never came back to be there for his wife and he sure as hell didn't give a damn when she died."

Taking a strategic step deeper into the room, Hohenheim kept a cautious eye on his son's reactions, "Haven't we had this conversation before?"

Ed slammed his hand against the mattress, "Yeah, the last time I told you I didn't see you as my father."

His voice was quiet as he slipped his hands into his pockets, glancing out the window into the early portion of the day, "It's been a while since we've had one of those arguments."

"And I'm sick and tired of having to remind you of it," Ed scoffed, wishing he could storm out of the room, "maybe you should take Winry to London and remind yourself why I don't want to go back there. I sure as hell cannot understand how you were even able to deal with them."

"Edward," Hohenheim's hand stroked over his beard, his voice light, "were you old enough to remember when I left?"

His eyes slit, throwing a disgusted look back at the old man, "You can't even remember how old I was?"

"You were four, Alphonse was three…"

Ed rolled his eyes.

"You and Trisha taught Alphonse how to dry the dishes that day," his fingers pinched his beard, resting his arms in the windowsill, "later we went into town to pick up the mail. I carried you around on my shoulders while we were in town so you could see everything."

Edward watched, on the edge of instructing his father to 'shut up', yet remaining curiously silent.

"I received a package from an old friend, Majihal."

Ed's brow rose at the name.

"He'd sent me a bottle of the wine your mother and I had at our wedding and a beginner's alchemy book for fun. You asked about the book, and I told you I'd teach it to you when you were older," Hohenheim's hand came back and slipped the ponytail off his shoulders, "we had dinner that night and toasted to the family. I don't remember how it unfolded, but sometime during the dinner hour you asked how I burnt my arm again. That wasn't the first time you or Alphonse had asked, but that's just what you thought the lesions on my body were, because that's what I'd told you."

Ed's jaw grinded, grating his teeth as he turned his attention away, "That was your own fault."

"It was," the quiet, guilt ridden voice locked itself away in the past, "I'd told Trisha what was happening to me long before I married her and she never looked down on me for it. I'll never understand that. Your mother had a faith in me, and in humanity, that I could never grasp."

The mention of his mother's name so rarely came up. Inexplicably curious about what sort of look he carried on his face, Edward's eyes flickered over to his father.

"I don't know if I'd have come home if I had gotten the letters you and Alphonse had written," Hohenheim didn't want to see the reaction Ed gave to those words, "I told Trisha I was leaving until I could at least come to terms with myself, let alone explain to you boys the calamity of sins required to end up in this state. I couldn't let you see me rot away. Even if she knew, I couldn't let my wife see me deteriorate like that," his hand came up, resting loosely over his mouth as he spoke, "What a burden I was."

Hohenheim took a moment; inhaling a slow, deep breath as he gathered his voice again, "Trisha told me that she'd wait until I came back, but I can't imagine how much of her faith I took from her that day. All the faith she'd put in me and in the family we wanted; a simple world that I could not provide for her."

Hohenheim looked back into the room, almost surprised to find that Edward was looking at him.

"I found out she'd died when I came back to Rizembool, and I was glad that she hadn't died alone. She had you boys with her," he replayed a scene active in his mind for too many years, "and some days I sit in the living room watching the candles flicker and find myself wondering what her last words were."

Stepping away from the window, Hohenheim moved to the bedside and picked up the train tickets out of Munich. Edward's gaze drifted away from his father's movements as the old man slipped the papers into his vest pocket.

"The day I left, the last thing she said to me was that she'd wait. We sat in the armchair, she tucked her head in against my neck; if I'd thought there was a God I would have prayed that I hadn't made her cry," his hands swept over his face, tracing through his tied hair until he gripped the ponytail and tightened it a little more, "and I sat there with her, until Trisha fell asleep. I continued to sit there with her, to just enjoy her company. Sometime past midnight I picked her up and took her to bed. There was a storm outside, Alphonse ended up waking up and crawled into bed with her."

"The tree outside his window use to wake him up when it was windy; the branches scratched the wall," Ed murmured, "Mom and the Rockbells spent a weekend moving the tree because she didn't want it cut own."

"You came downstairs just as I'd gotten up enough nerve to walk out the door," Hohenheim straightened his vest, "the storm woke you up, and no power existing on that green earth beyond my own was going to get you to go back to bed."

The mind's eye slowly picked apart the steps Edward's father laid out for him.

"So I sat with you in your mother's rocker. We use to sit there some nights and I'd have you tucked into my left arm for hours. Your head would never find the spot in my shoulder that Alphonse buried into, you'd just put your head against my chest and simply fall asleep. It was fairly easy."

The distant eyes Ed wore remained shielded by the bangs framing his face and masking his profile. Hohenheim looked towards the door; focusing head as his hands slipped into his pockets. He'd allow history to follow behind him.

"I put you in your bed before I left. You lay down and I brushed the hair from your face, I kissed you on the forehead and told you to sleep well."

The old left hand reached out, sweeping Edward's bangs up and ruffling his hair as he finally walked away. It had been an action his child had protested against long before he'd been able to stand on two feet, yet today he was silent.

"I left the house no more than five minutes later."

Hohenheim turned back as he pulled the door open, the blonde ponytail swaying over his back, "Don't think I can't remember what it felt like to walk away from all that."

The door to the deadened hospital room slammed shut as Hohenheim left, leaving his son's silent figure sitting in the middle of the early daylight flowing in through the open second floor window. Ed's only hand reached back, pulling the elastic tie from the mess of blonde strands. He tossed the tie into the middle of the floor as his hair slipped over his shoulders.

**

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To Be Continued...  
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Author's Notes **

Ed's having a bad week... Al too.

I try to not mix Japanese and English in the story but, Izumi is "Sensei". "Teacher" sounds strange and the boys would never refer to her as Izumi or Mrs. Curtis. 'Sensei' is a title with more familiarity in English speaking places, mainly because of martial arts.

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	18. Rizembool Verses

**Chapter 69 – Rizembool Verses  
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Verse I – Because Mommy Said So.  
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Rinsing the plate under the splash of warm water, Trisha handed the dripping white plate to Alphonse's outstretched arms. Keeping an eye upon her youngest son perched next to the sink, a towel draped over his outstretched legs, another towel fumbling around in his hands as he made a continual attempt to dry his mother's dishes; Trisha treated another plate to the rinse water. This time, the plate was passed across Alphonse to Edward, who handled the slippery item with a bit more precision than his younger brother.

Leaning across Edward, Al placed his clean dish onto the other plates they'd already dried, "Mommy, done."

Extending a bowl to her son's wide arms, Trisha couldn't help but giggle at the delight dancing in Alphonse's eyes, having finally been allowed to help his older brother dry the glass dishes.

Setting his plate off with the rest, Ed pushed to his knees and leaned into his younger brother's battle with the dish in his lap, "See Al, if you turn the bowl on it's side, put the cloth there, and turn it like that in a circle, it dries lots faster."

Following along with his brother's motions, wide-eyed Al did as instructed. As if a valued trophy, Al gripped the rim of his bowl and held it out for his mother to see, "Mommy, see. I done bowls too."

"Yes you did," Trisha's tone tingled with delight as she gave a huge grin in reply to Al's far larger one, "now pass it to Edward, and I'll give you another one."

"Okay!"

Ed sat the bowl his brother handed him aside and took a plate from his mother before watching her hand Al another bowl. From the corners of both Edward and Trisha's eye, the pair caught as Al tipped the bowl, put the cloth inside, only to have it slip from his grasp as he tried to turn it. Trisha was unable to move fast enough to catch the dish as it bounced off the counter's edge, and shattered on the hardwood floor.

Leaning over the edge of the counter, Ed examined the scattered shards of the white bowl, "Oops."

"Oh dear," Trisha's hand came to her cheek as she stepped back from the sharp mess, "I'll get the broom… oh, Alphonse," abruptly changing her mind, Trisha swept a few pieces aside with her slipper as she reached for Al, his lower lip trembling as his eyes watered up. Not given time to grab her son, Trisha took a startled step backwards at the unannounced handclap echoing from the top of the stairs; the shards of the bowl suddenly coming together on the floor. The transmutation light, and the decent of their father from the second floor, was enough to distract Al from his tears.

"See, Daddy fixed it," Ed pointed down to the ground as he tried to get Al's attention.

Trisha's hands came to her hips as Hohenheim crossed the kitchen, picked up the bowl, and sat it down in his youngest son's lap, "All better, right?"

"Thank you Daddy," Al's voice choked, the miserable look still in his eyes as he examined the restored glass bowl in his lap.

Hohenheim's hand came up and ruffled Al's hair before cheering the miserable look with a kiss to the forehead, "No tears. Remember what went wrong, and don't let yourself do it that way again. You'll do just fine when you try again, and don't forget I won't fix a second one."

"Daddy, Mommy's got a mean face on."

Trisha watched her husband look over to her at the prompting of Edward's voice, "How are they supposed to learn to be careful if you keep fixing everything they break?" She knew he knew this too, she told him every time.

"I don't fix everything," Hohenheim contested the accusation, even though he was well aware she would have the upper hand in this argument, "it was just one. I fixed Edward's first broken dish too."

Trisha continued to frown; still holding the belief that her husband constantly spoiled their children.

Still sitting next to Al, who cradled the bowl in his lap, Ed perked up, "I'll learn how to fix things too like Daddy!" at that, he slapped his hands together and squished his face as tight as he could.

Trisha's hand came to her forehead, unable to hold back the giggle at the face Edward was making.

"Oh no, I don't think so young man," Hohenheim's strong and playful voice caused Ed to crack an eye open, "do you know what I'll do to you if you put your hands together like that and something happens?" a mischievous grin grew across Hohenheim's face as he watched his son's eyes widen as he made a slow  
approach, "I will spank you so hard…"

Edward shrieked and quickly dropped off of the restricted space of the counter; the change of platform didn't seem to help, as Hohenheim snatched Ed up by the back of his overalls. Tossing him into the air with a scream, Hohenheim caught the tiny boy effortlessly under both his arms.

"Trisha, did you need to go into town for anything? I have to pick up a package from the post office," Hohenheim placed the squealing boy down upon his broad shoulders.

Wiping her hands with a towel, Trisha glanced out the window, "I don't think so, but the fresh air and walk would be nice," reaching over to Alphonse, she took the bowl from her son's disappointed hands and pulled him to his feet upon the counter, "Alphonse, would you like to escort me into the town?"

Ed's chin came to rest atop his father's head, "Isn't that daddy's job?"

"Daddy's bad today," Trisha's voice shot over to the laughing man as though she were scolding her child, "and Alphonse's done lots of big boy things today, he can be a bigger boy and make sure Mummy gets safely into the town."

Al's grin stretched from ear to ear, the pride his mother showered him with radiated in waves from his body. Though he and his brother exchanged a set of stuck out tongues; today, Alphonse was a big boy too, just like his older brother…

… because Mommy said so.

**Verse II - Tastes Like Marshmallow  
**  
"Edward," Trisha's voice called out, "make sure you hold Winry and Alphonse's hands tight, okay?"

Turning over his shoulder Ed called back, "M'kay!"

"I wanna hold Winry's hand too," Al pouted as he toddled alongside his brother down the gravel path beneath the brilliant mid-day sun. The warmth of the summer rays filtered down through the forming shapes of puffing white clouds; pure white light drifting throughout the farm fields below.

"Well, I don't wanna hold a boy's hand," Winry scowled over to Ed, her face scrunched up tight in protest, "but Mommy says I have to hold Ed's hand. She didn't say I had to hold Al's too. I'm not holding two boys hands, I'll get a boy disease."

Al whined; sulking and dragging his feet at the rejection while he swung around the handhold he had with his brother.

Ed's pudgy face grew extraordinarily cross, scowling fiercely at Winry's teasing, "Don't be mean to Al. And I don't have a boy disease."

"Yes you dooo," Winry shot her head away from Ed and turned her nose to the sky, "all boys have a boy disease and you're going to give it to me and Al cause you're holding our hands."

"Brother, I dun wanna boy disease," Al's little voice continued to pout until he fell silent, once again distracted from the ongoing debate.

"Winry!" Ed picked up his squeaking voice in protest, "there's no such thing as a boy disease."

"Nuh'uh, you lie!"

"I do not!"

"Yes you do!"

"Brother!" Al suddenly bounced at his side, his voice squealing as he pointed out to the trio's right, "an octopus cloud!"

Ed's eyes widened as he followed his brother's pointing finger, "It is…"

"Wow, an octopus cloud," Winry mirrored Edward's gaping enthrallment of the sky. The children fell into silence, watching as their cloud paraded it's solitary way across the crystal blue, southern sky.

"I bet it tastes like marshmallow…"

"What do you suppose has those three all wrapped up?" Sarah glanced over to Trisha and Hohenheim as the trio followed a good twenty meters behind the children.

"That octopus cloud," Hohenheim pointed to the sky.

Trisha and Sarah exchanged a concerned look before casting an overly questioning gaze up at Hohenheim.

"What?" the old man's amused expression slowly fell away.

"I don't see it," Sarah said flatly.

"… Trisha?" a faint plea lay buried within the voice.

"I'm glad you can see the octopus cloud, dear," she patted the hand that he held hers with and returned her bemused smile over to the giggling Sarah.

Hohenheim decided it was time to deflect the conversation away from him, "Sarah, why is it just you and your daughter out today?"

"Oh that man," she folded her arms, "he wandered off into the valley, he'd collected some plants down there and put the roots into a serum that worked wonders on that cold Mom had a few weeks back. He wanted some more to work with."

Trisha grinned in amusement at Sarah's explanation, "That's so interesting, both of you having gone through medical education in Central and he still enjoys herbal solutions."

"He's done it every day this week too. I'm hauling him into town Sunday whether he likes it or not," she huffed, folding her arms while her voice snapped back at the children at large, "Winry! I told you to hold Edward's hand!"

"Edward," Hohenheim's voice commanded out after the mother's, "we told you, you had to hold both Winry and Al's hands. You are the oldest!"

Pointing an accusing finger at Winry who was stomping back towards her mother, Ed's spat out in protest, "Winry says I'm a liar!"

"You are!" she turned back just long enough to give him a raspberry, "Ed thinks that the octopus cloud turned into a spider cloud but it still looks like an octopus cloud!"

Both Trish and Sarah's narrowed gazes turned up to Hohenheim whose smirk was growing wider.

"I told you it was an octopus."

**Verse III – Parent and Child  
**_**(Father and Son)**_**  
**  
Leaving the wives and remaining children behind, Hohenheim picked up the son that followed him and placed him upon what the little imp had claimed to be his rightful spot: atop his dad's shoulders. The warmth of the midday sun wrapped the life below in a blanket only suitable for lounging around on such a peaceful day. And as his father walked the path through town, the little son kept eyes open as he slouched over his father's head, cheek loosening the tightened ponytail as he buried his face into the soft hair. Hohenheim paid no mind; he was used to it, even if his wife would nag that the boy should walk on his own two feet, he did not mind the presence on his shoulders.

"Daddy," like a kitten kneading a blanket, Ed's fingers played in his father's hair; his wide eyes embedded on a lazy body examining the activity in the town, "where are we going now?"

Though unable to see, Hohenheim glanced up regardless, "Remember, daddy needed to go to the post office. I had a phone call last night telling me that there was a box with my name on it."

"Really?" Ed curled his lips in amusement at the thought of what could be in the box, "maybe someone sent you chocolate."

Entertained by how his son's mind was still wrapped up with the candy store, he did his best not to laugh, "Perhaps someone did send me chocolate. But I'm going to guess it's a book."

"You have lots of those already," Ed's nose twisted, "Mommy said that she's going to burry them in the field if you get more."

"Did she really?" Hohenheim's brow rose at the statement, "well, we'll have to have a talk with Mommy and tell her that my books make poor fertilizer."

Though restrained by his father's hands, Ed still made the attempt to swing his legs as his voice sang, "I already told her you'd say that!"

"I'm sure you did," Hohenheim laughed as his hand clasped around the handle of the post office door. Ducking to allow Ed clearance through the doorway, the pair made their way to the abandoned desk. While Edward's eyes opened wider with curiosity, Hohenheim's narrowed with the same emotion as they both scanned the small entryway. No one at the desk, no one within eyesight in the building, no sounds to be had at all; it had been the only time all day that Ed had sat still upon his father's shoulders.

**Verse IV – Foreordained  
**  
Hohenheim's hand came out and tapped the service bell upon the desk, within seconds of doing so, the backroom door swung wide and a sharp pair of eyes looked back at them.

"… Is Bryan here?"

Hohenheim found his eyes locked into the malevolent expression the young, brown haired man carried. He had been unable to cut himself from it until the man shook off his expression and gave a laugh in response.

"Sorry Sir, Bryan stepped out to the barber's. Was there something I can get for you?"

"Do you work here?" Hohenheim continued to carry caution about his aura.

"Yes I do, I apologize for not being at the desk," the door swung shut at he stepped out; waving all tension from the room with the sweeping of his hand, "there's been mice in the storage room and I've spent all my day trying to rid the place of the blasted things. Another darted by my feet and into the room not more than a minute ago."

"Daddy can I get down?"

The request was quickly fulfilled with the fluid sweep of Hohenheim's arms. Dropping to his feet, Ed did not remain in place long enough for his father to take his hand. Running up to the counter, Ed rose as high upon his tiptoes as he could manage; only his wayward antenna of hair peeked above the top. Taking a few steps back until he could clearly see the employee, Ed's tiny hands came to his hips.

"I'll catch the mouses for you!"

"The word is 'mice', Edward," Hohenheim corrected; his gaze shifting between the amusing determination plastered across his son's face and the inquisitive look growing on the face of the man behind the counter.

Ed quickly turned to his father, "But I said I'll catch'em! You can help too Daddy, right?"

"It's okay young mister," the post office attendant smirked with faint amusement and leaned over his counter, "I'll find a way to rid myself of these disturbances."

Raising his hands in front of himself, Ed's grin grew wide, "Daddy gets the mice out of the house when he cla–"

"Edward," though his actions were swift, his touch remained gentle as Hohenheim quickly took hold of his son's left hand. Kneeling down, the other strong hand came to rest on Edward's back, "why don't you go ask those girls outside if you can join them?" his voice held a playful tone up as a guise, "you can play jump rope, right?"

Ed nodded vigorously at the statement, "I'm better than Winry at it, and she's always bragging she's better at it."

"Well, why don't you ask those girls if you can join them and then show them how much better than Winry you are?

"Mmm kay!"

With that, Edward scampered from his father's grasp, toddling to the door and pulling on the handle until it popped open for him.

The young worker folded his arms across the counter as he shifted his weight, "He's a nice little boy. He's yours I assume?"

"Yes, he is," refocusing his attention to his other company within the room, Hohenheim rose to his feet as he nodded, "I didn't know that Bryan hired an employee finally."

"The man's getting on in years, he was kind enough to offer a traveler like myself a place to work until I took to the road again," dusting his hands off, the young man put them firmly on his hips, "what's the name on your package?"

"It should say 'Hohenheim' or 'Elric'. Bryan didn't specify."

Narrowing his expression curiously, the employee stopped before reaching the backroom door,"… Hohenheim…"

The man raised an eyebrow at the drawl of his name.

"You're that famous alchemist that Bryan was telling me about," his gaze engaged Hohenheim, "I traveled through Central City a few months back, your name causes quite a buzz there."

The reaction was somewhat disheartening, as though he'd not wanted to hear the man mention any of that, "My name still does that in Central? I haven't been there in a long time, I'm surprised it hasn't been swept aside by now."

The young man shook his head, "Oh no, Central is full of alchemists and your name comes up among them when I've heard them chatter. Though, it's not surprising that you'd find a nice, quite place to avoid all that attention, it would get quite burdensome after a while," his eyes turned out the window towards the playing children, "but, I never imagined you to be a family man until Bryan brought it up."

Carrying his gaze beyond the window, the curl of his smile began to show, "There are more joys in my life than just alchemy, Edward is part of that."

"I heard that you had more than one child."

"Ah," Hohenheim grinned, somewhat delighted that the conversation was focusing on his children and not on his skills, "my youngest son is Alphonse, he's in the park with his mother right now." His attention redirected to the postal employee as the young man looked off in thought.

"That's it? I was told you had more children in your household," the man said with the tilt of his head.

Hohenheim quickly made the correction at an assumption that crept up now and then, "No, we only have two boys. Winry is a family friend."

"Strange…" the man folded his arms, still in thought, "Someone must have been confused when I heard you'd fathered more children."

His head shook lightly at a mistake he'd more than once corrected, "It's happened before."

"Obviously some mistaken identity…"

The words rolled off the tongue so casually, without any honestly noted concern for the issue the man was creating; the underlying tone almost seemed theatrical. Words that flowed like scripture began teasing the back of his mind, unnerving Hohenheim. He watched as the young man kicked a peg into the backroom door, propping it open; finally reaching up onto a shelf for his package.

"… with 'Winry' then."

"Her parents are gone quite often, she spends a great deal of time at our house. I'm not surprised, there are a some people in town we aren't that close with," his voice came with caution, still mulling over how to identify which cord it was that had set him on edge. For a frightening moment, he wondered if…

"Ah well," as quickly as the nerves began to quake, the discontent vanished with a quirky smile and the presentation of a rectangular box, "your package, Sir."

Hohenheim's brow rose, the corner of his lip curling in amusement at the senders name scrawled at the top corner of the box, "… Majihal?"

"Someone you know?"

Unable to clear the grin that had quickly formed in his face, Hohenheim took the box up, curiously turning the box over as he felt it's weight and listened for the sounds it made, "Yes, I haven't heard from him in ages," with a bemused laugh, he tucked the unexpected parcel under his arm, "thank you."

"Not a problem," the attendant folded his arms over the countertop as he watched Hohenheim make his way outside, "I'll let Bryan know you stopped by to pick it up."

**Verse V – Seeds for the Future  
**  
"Daddy!" Ed scampered over, his tiny feet echoing off the wooden deck as he ran up to the front of the post office door, "what did you get?"

Sitting down on the wooden step, Hohenheim placed the box in his lap and grinned a foolish grin to his curious son, "I got a gift from an old friend."

Coming to lean on his father's shoulder, Ed narrowed his face as he eyed the box curiously, "What sort of gift?"

"Why don't we find out," from his pocket, Hohenheim used the pocketknife to slit a seam through the tape that bound the box together. In his lap, with child's eyes peering, Hohenheim opened the box. Handing the packaging tissue to his young son, the father began to laugh as he pulled out the bottle of red wine.

"'Marianna's Finest'. That old fool, where did he find a bottle of this?"

Ed's hands reached out and clamped around the heavy dark bottle of wine, his hands not big enough to touch at the fingertips as he gripped the bottle, "What is it?"

"It's wine, Edward," Hohenheim sat the bottle down at Ed's feet, "a very fine wine. It's what your mother and I had at our wedding."

Plunking himself down on the boardwalk, Ed carefully examined the bottle that he'd placed between his legs, "What's it taste like?"

Hohenheim knew where this question was leading, "It tastes a little bit like raspberries," he watched in amusement at Ed's obvious approval that it tasted nothing like milk.

"And there's something else in this box," Hohenheim cleared the rest of the filling away as Edward began to examine the cork preserving the wine. Clearing away the remainder of the packaging, Hohenheim's hearty laugh sounded out as he pushed the box aside and dropped the book into his lap.

Ignoring his father's amusement, Ed's fingers wiggled the loose cork curiously. Clenching his tiny fist, Ed began to bop the cork back into the stem of the bottle.

"That old fool…" Hohenheim continued to shake his head. Entirely amused by the gift, Hohenheim flipped open the first few pages.

"Daddy, what did you get?" giving up on the wine bottle, Ed returned to his feet and again came to stand at his father's shoulder, "what's that?"

Flipping the pages to the book shut, Hohenheim held it up for Edward, "It's an introduction to alchemy text. Apparently, I have some old friends who think I need to touch up on my basics."

Ed's expression suddenly perked, "Can I read it?"

"Can you recite the alphabet?"

Puffing up like a frazzled kitten, Ed's face soured at the insult, "Yes!"

"Can you spell 'alchemy'?"

There was a long pause; the one that exists when the accused child debates if it is worth it to stretch the truth enough to get his way, "… No, but…"

Reaching his arm out, Hohenheim swept the child into his lap. Resting the book over his son's stout legs, the father's finger came to rest on the word in question; the title of the book, which was etched into the hard brown cover, "When you get old enough to know how to spell 'alchemy', then I'll teach you what's in this book."

**Verse VI – Parent and Child  
**_**(Mother and Son)  
**_  
It was the horizon never to be forgotten; the bed upon which, night after night, the sun would lay down upon. It was the holder of many daydreams. Even on the cloudiest and darkest of nights, there would always be something distinct to this existence of peace in an unsettled world that made it its own. It was intangible and indescribable, but the only description needed past the five o'clock hour would be 'Rizembool's western horizon'; enough would be said.

And though the sun still shone down upon the township and countryside, the town watched with subdued relief at the billowing of grey clouds growing on the horizon. All came to know and accept that once the sun sank beyond the last reaches of the land, the horizon will have left them with a welcomed rain; a blissful and welcomed rain not seen in weeks.

"Mommy. How come over there the clouds are so big and there are none over here? How come they're grey on the bottom?"

Trisha started to giggle, "They're grey on the bottom because they were dipped in water."

"Mommy," little Alphonse shook his head before giving his most profound statement, "water is blue. The clouds are not blue."

In the clearing near to the slide and swings Alphonse and Winry had played in before Sarah took her daughter home, Trisha sat. Nestled into the long, cool grass to watch the remainder of the day slowly unfold, Trisha had wrapped her youngest son up in her care; content to enjoy the light breeze that teased their hair and the tallest tips of grass.

Time passed by without concern.

"Water in the sky is different," Trisha explained, pointing out to the unfolding event, "The sky is already blue, so the clouds have to be different colours so we can see them. That's why, when water is in the sky it's grey."

"Ohh…" the child's face squished up with curiosity, "how come all the cloud's not grey?"

"Ah," Trisha's arms enveloped her youngest son as he continued to interrogate a horizon he would someday come to learn was never to be questioned, simply enjoyed, "Alphonse, do you remember what happened to my dishcloth when I hung it out on the line?"

"Sorta…"

"Remember when we took it off the line, the bottom of the rag was wet but the top was dry?"

Al nodded slowly, saucer eyes and wide-open ears absorbing everything his mother had to say.

"That's why the cloud is only grey on the bottom, because the cloud is hanging from the clothes line in the sky. The bottom part of the cloud is still really wet like my rag, but the top is dry, so it's white like all the other clouds."

"Ohhh…" it was such simple enlightenment that explained so much of this unknown world.

Trisha's soft voice carried like the breeze; light weight and carefree, "and you know how if my rag is really soggy at the end it drips onto the grass? That's the same thing that happens to the cloud. When the cloud is really grey it drips onto the grass because it's soggy, and that's how it rains."

"Ohhhh…" for young Alphonse, the world made so much more sense today as he stared off into the skyline.

Trisha ran her fingers through his hair, pleased with herself that she'd unraveled one of life's many mysteries today.

"Mommy?"

The curious inquisition started again. Peace with her youngest son rarely existed; his mind ran circuits whenever the boy was given spare time to do so. Trisha would never mind allowing him the time and space to understand how the world managed itself, nor did she mind finding a way to answer, though Alphonse never seemed to understand the reasons behind his mother's amused giggles.

"Why does Brother sit in the hill when he's mad?"

Trisha's hand gave a final brush over Alphonse's hair as she re-wrapped her arms around him. She took a moment to realize the question's inspiration came from how they seemed to be perched upon Rizembool's park hill, "Because he wants to make sure everyone knows that he's not happy with something. The hill is the highest place around, so everyone can see that he's sitting there."

"How come he doesn't go to the river anymore?"

"Because the last time he did that, he wandered up stream and your father couldn't find him for a long time," her chin came to rest in the downy softness of her young son's bed of hair, recalling an unsettling day, "he made it explicitly clear that Edward was to never go sulk at the river again after that."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm," the ensuing conclusion could only add a touch of laughter to her voice, "and now he sits in a spot where the whole township can see him glower over them."

The wide, silver eyes turned back towards a skyline slowly changing its colours. And as his mind found new ways to have his mother answer his dissection of the world, it was her voice that swept away all the important questions he considered asking.

"When I was a little girl, no taller than Winry…" Trisha's mind found itself wrapped up in the same early evening mystique that Alphonse created questions from, "… I use to live up stream," her eyes wandered up the river's path, watching it disappear around the curve of the mountain, "a day or so upstream. Our house was much closer to the river, though I was never curious like Edward so I never wandered too far. But, whenever the world wasn't right, or something went wrong, I use to sit out at the water's edge too."

"Did you like the water, Mommy?"

"There's something peaceful about the water's edge."

The scenery became just that, scenery; something to be left untouched and simply enjoyed as Alphonse snuggled into the security of his mother's arms.

"Water in the mountains is so clean and cool; it washes away all sorts of bad feelings. If you sit with the water long enough, you can understand how it feels to be free just like the river. It always relaxed me and 'washed away' all those things that upset me. I'd always feel better."

**Verse VII – Toast to the Family  
**  
With her hand placed firmly at the edge of the frame, Trisha pushed the open window closed. The westerly wind was blowing the drizzle of the soggy cloud into her kitchen, and though the aroma of freshly fallen rain was a wonderful scent within the house, it was not a substance suitable for her kitchen counter tops.

"Daddy…" the little voice whined.

Hohenheim's hand held firm the tiny fingers that had found their way into the mashed potatoes, "Alphonse, wait for your mother to sit down, then use the spoon." Taking a napkin from the center of the dining table, the father dipped it in his glass of water, soaking the end just enough that once he'd squeezed the tissue in his hand, the entire square would be damp, "Dinner is not finger food."

Alphonse was unable to wiggle his hand away as his father wiped it down, then protested even further when Hohenheim amused himself by wiping down the pudgy face with the damp napkin as well.

Trisha slid herself into the last remaining chair at the table, giggling at the wrinkled face her youngest made while her husband reseated himself at the table.

"Mommy?"

Edward's call caught her attention.

"Didn't Winry's mom and dad already make an anniversary supper?"

Trisha's fingers came to her lips in thought, "They did, but that was last month."

"They beat me to it, I was supposed to treat your mother to dinner," Hohenheim announced, an eye raised as he sat down at the table, "but there's no harm in having a second dinner. We can place the blame on the bottle of wine that showed up a month too late."

Her hand covering her mouth, Trisha began to giggle as her husband popped the cork of the wine bottle, "I love when you cook for me, it's such a masterpiece."

"It's not that good," his hands held the bottle with great care as he filled the two wine glasses on the table.

"You've had many more years to refine your cooking than I will ever have," Trisha protested, though she could not clear the delight in her expression after having spent the remainder of the day in the yard with her children while her husband filled the house with the luring smell of roast beef, steamed vegetables, and potatoes.

"Daddy can I have some wine?"

"Me too!"

Both parents gave a strong shake of the head as Hohenheim returned the cork to the bottle stem, "This is too strong, it'll put you to sleep and then you'll be waking up at all hours of the night."

Placing the tall glass in front of his wife, the father sat down; slipping the stem between his index and middle finger, Hohenheim raised the glass into the air, "To…"

"To Mommy and Daddy!" Alphonse's voice sang out as he held his red plastic cup of juice strongly in the air, a motion soon mimicked by his older brother.

Trisha's giggles couldn't be withheld as she tipped the rim of her glass off her husband's, "To 'Mommy and Daddy'."

Beyond the rim of the glass she sipped from, Trisha suddenly realized that her husband had placed his glass down; moments later the hallow echo of the plastic lid to Alphonse's cup bounced off the hardwood floor.

"Dammit," Hohenheim's hand snatched the napkins from the table and started to wipe the face of the child who howled in embarrassment of the red juice that had soaked him.

Trisha quickly placed her glass down, standing up sharply from where she sat, "Oh no. Edward, get a cloth from the sink, please."

As the elder of the two children moved at his mother's request, Hohenheim pushed up his sleeves as he lifted the sobbing child from the seat, "The lid wasn't on tight. I'm sorry Alphonse, that was my fault."

"Here," Trisha reached out for her crying son, "I'll get him cleaned up."

"It's fine Trisha," Hohenheim shifted Alphonse in his grasp, "I'll look after him. It's only juice; I'll have him cleaned up shortly. Finish your dinner before it gets cold," the husband leaned down and kissed the forehead of his protesting wife, still refusing to hand over the unsettled child.

Dropping the damp cloth on the wooden seat and a handful of paper towel over the spill on the floor, Edward looked up to his father and stopped in his tracks, "Daddy, you burned your arm!"

Frozen, Hohenheim's startled concern cast down upon the little boy whose hand reached up towards his left arm, "You said you'd be careful cooking this time!"

The child's brow, knit with scolding concern, directed up to his father; a silent, cautious eye locked over him. Rising to his feet with Alphonse in his arms, the sleeve in the arm cradling his son was pulled too high.

"Those things happen to master chefs Edward," Trisha's voice broke in where Hohenheim's could not, "they start tossing their food around like a professional does and bad things can happen. That's why I don't like you boys around when I'm cooking dinner, there's lots of sharp and hot things you can hurt yourself on."

"Skin turns black when you burn yourself?" Ed frowned at his own question.

"It might," Trisha's hand slid down her son's arm as she crouched down before him, taking him by the hand, "now, your father can take care of himself, why don't you he-"

She could hear the creaking of the wooden staircase, and Trisha turned her gaze over her shoulders. Without a word to each other, Trisha watched as her husband carried their other child up to their rooms. Her bottom lip caught in her teeth, she tried to clear the empathetic expression from her face, wishing Hohenheim had been able to find the courage to say something.

**Verse VIII – Anticipated Apology  
**  
What could be heard for wind whistled in between the double panes of glass. The curtains waved softly as the sounds of a storm swept through the cracks. A faint flash of lightning withheld the distant roll of thunder for an eternity. Each flash that grew more prominent illuminated the shadows of the room; the shadow that stood behind him made every inch of his body quiver.

He sat, dumped in his couch, carrying a gaze out to the unlit fireplace, simply listening and waiting. Amidst the storm's rare silence, bare feet finally brushed along the floor; his eyes cast down into his lap. Sharp ears animated the movement, coloured the skin, drew the gown, streaked the hair, and highlighted the silhouette upon the wall with each flash of lightning

Without a word, Trisha picked up the candle from the holster upon the cloth-covered table. He couldn't help but look. It was curiosity more than it was anything else, and he watched as she moved from the table to the fireplace. The ends of soft brown hair swayed over her back, the white, silk gown hanging off her hips. With the unwavering sweep of her body's motion, Trisha placed the candle at the center of the fireplace mantle, in the space between her potted plants.

"I always thought the candles looked better on the mantle. The flowers have a whole different look in that light."

She turned the gentle gaze towards her husband in the chair, his eyes cast away, staring off into the excitement beyond the sheer curtain covering the window.

"And the boys can't reach them up there," her feet swept along the rug, moving towards him. The sound stood out above all else in Hohenheim's ears, he recognized the unspoken acknowledgement she gave for his solitude that evening and then did nothing to stop her from intruding.

Trisha sat down on his knee; Hohenheim's eye flickered over to her as she perched herself much like their children did.

"They went down before the storm broke, so hopefully it doesn't wake them up."

The man's cautious gaze watched her from beneath his brow; the soft, brown hair sliding over her shoulder as her hand held gently over his bristly jaw line and her lips rested softly against his forehead. Hohenheim's hands came up, sliding her touch away. His strong fingers wove into her hair as he put his forehead against her; his finger tips slipping down the back of her neck, brushing over her shoulder, and running down her arm until he found her hand. She laced her fingers through his and tucked herself into the niche at his neck that was all her own.

"I'm sorry."

Trisha's voice floated, "For what?"

"For all this."

"Is there something wrong with this?"

Some part of Hohenheim wished that she could find the same flaws he saw, the other part of him was thankful that she did not care to look for them or simply looked past them when present.

"I could see it again."

His hand again slipped into her hair, running his fingers through the length of her hair.

"You had that look in your eyes again when we were walking back to the house," even with how the storm rattled the house, the sound of his breathing was the clearest thing, "the first time you had that look, you told me that you thought you needed to leave."

The strong left hand that was woven into her hair strengthened as he held her against his chest.

"And then we never spoke of it again."

No, Hohenheim thought, he never spoke of it again. He only thought about it, and they both knew it. Trisha had a look in her eyes that would develop to match his for that cruel thought.

"It was worse this time," Trisha's cheek snuggled into the warmth of his bare skin at the crook in his neck, "most days when you have that look it's just wandering off in thought…"

"…Trisha…"

"But your distant look was so full of concern," her voice held strong through the urge to tremble, "and you didn't say a word along the path until the door closed behind you. You said nothing after putting Alphonse down."

"You just sat here, all evening long."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad at you," the quickness of the reply dampened Hohenheim's hopes that she would be boiling with frustration over the thoughts in his mind, "Haven't I told you before, it's not my place to pass judgement."

Some sinister part of his mind wished that she would scream at him, and then throw him into the cobblestone path for wanting to leave her this way for his own selfish reasoning. That would make not looking back a far simpler task. But that was not Trisha, not the woman he married.

"If you go, can you come back without that look in your eye. The one you're so afraid to share with me?"

That was wrong, he'd shared that story with her. His wife knew more than anyone ever had, she knew the source of his anguish and had told him that it was unnecessary for him to leave. She continued to read him like a book, knowing whenever he refrained and kept her from sharing his worries. It was the security of this family he enjoyed, knowing he did not always have to explain himself; there was so much that words could not describe.

"I won't come back until I can. I'll take these burdens away from your life until I've lost them again."

Trisha would create more than one way to stand by his side and give her husband a long abandoned sense of comfort for an unspoken lifestyle, "And I'll still be here for you when you come home."

The hand gripping into the fabric of his nightshirt tried to silence him, "I don't know-"

The roll of thunder that cascaded through the room drowned out the sound of Trisha's voice, a sound clearly conveyed to her husband by the strength held in a pair of blue eyes, passed on to their children.

**Verse IX – Crying Sky  
**  
It was a brisk, sharp wind; taunting the shingles, whipping around the top of the chimney, rattling the windows just a little more with each gust. The pelting of raindrops on the glass and rooftop would intensify at each puff of wind blowing across the landscape, and then die off to the smooth downpour that slipped off each surface.

The lonely set of eyes, burdened with an unprecedented tale not to be shared, turned his attention once more to the door. He listened in silence as the wind whistled through the cracks of the door's seal.

Again he looked up the stairs, he did not want to go back up there. No, he wanted to go back up there more than anything else, but by this time he'd convinced himself that he could not. It would be easier if he buttoned the trench coat, took up his briefcase, and walked away. The storming world beyond the door welcomed him with all it's spite; he didn't deserve anything better on a list of irreparable sins he would continue to add to. A list and chain of events he never seemed to be able to stop.

It was a curse.

"Daddy?"

There had been very few moments in his life when his heart had stopped, but he could add this to the list.

"Edward," even if his voice did shake from the startle, it would never be known why, "go back to bed."

"The window keeps rattling," the quiet, little voice echoed in the darkness, the childish arms wrapped around his knees as he sat at the middle of the staircase, "and the tree keeps scratching the wall."

Hohenheim dumped his coat over the back of the kitchen chair. Of course he wouldn't get off that easily, the world wasn't done punishing him for his sins; it would never finish.

"Go sleep with Alphonse, his window doesn't rattle."

The voice whined softly at the suggestion, "I tried, but Al's sleeping in your bed…"

Hohenheim's eyebrows rose, Alphonse wasn't there when he'd gotten up; but it had been a while ago.

"… and the tree still scratches the wall in Al's room, it's scary."

It was that same strong grip by a gentle set of hands that had always slipped under Ed's arms and picked him up; this time from the darkness of the unlit household. He didn't even need to hear the squeaking sound in the voice, he could feel it by how the arms wrapped around his neck, how the legs clung around his body, and how the head tried to burry itself in the curve at his neck; the poor child was so overtired.

"The tree can't hurt you; there's nothing scary about the tree."

"Yes there is."

Some days Hohenheim believed he could make his money in fortune telling; right or wrong, no matter how far into the future he saw, he knew he would not end up winning this argument.

"Why don't you go sleep with your mother?" he only needed one hand to support him, while the other soothed over the matted pillow-hair.

"Al's sleeping with her already."

It was his house, he could have moved blindly through it; the darkness of the stormy night was as good as blindness. Hohenheim walked a slow course through the main floor of the house, never needing to watch where he was stepping.

"You two can't share?"

"… No…"

He couldn't help but give a chuckle to the stubbornness; it probably would have been impossible to detach him anyways. The father's left arm supported his child with ease while the right hand removed the candle from the living room mantle. Slowly, Hohenheim came to sit in the cushions of the wooden rocker, placing the candle down on the round end table at his side. He readjusted Edward, leaning into the corner of the chair as he tucked his boy into the basket of his curving elbow. The palms of old hands awkwardly touched, and the wick of the candle at his side flickered to life.

"Daddy…" the child's voice murmured while a hand swept through his hair, "…I'm tired."

"I know."

The little body shifted, the tiny left hand pulling at the shirt as Hohenheim leaned back in the rocker. Supported in the father's left arm, he rested against the broad chest as the rocker slowly lulled him to sleep in a far safer setting. The hand brushed over his head again as the clarity between the world around him and the world he would imagine began to blur.

But he could hear it, as distinct as his father's 'cologne', the heartbeat beneath the cotton shirt that carried a strong and steady rhythm. It was an unchanging and familiar constant; as secure as the arms that could embrace him, the comforting sound he would find in the chest moved with him while he swayed. The world was safer this way. It always was when he could hear it, even if the world drifted away in the process. Fingers, once wrapped tightly in the fabric, slipped from their hold, only to fall until the curled tips caught on the shirt pocket; a place they continued to hang undisturbed.

The poignant heartbeat drowned the world out until the breathing, the wind nor the rain existed anymore.

That final plea would not be answered; the one Hohenheim had made for himself. Standing up carefully from the chair, he would have to go upstairs one last time. Even with the extra weight in his arms, the father still had the ability to ascend the staircase without a sound; a technique mastered to catch young children.

**Verse X – The Last Day of Rizembool's Radiance.  
**  
He didn't want to look. He would pass down this hall and not look; he couldn't look.

The whimpering voice was stronger than his own selfishness. Looking into the room, the curled up ball of Alphonse next to peacefully sleeping body of his wife twitched and squeaked. Leaving Edward in the cushions of the bedroom chair, Hohenheim placed higher priority on calming the unsettled behaviour within the bed. He would have to walk paths to lull both children into security tonight, and he picked Alphonse up from the bed. His hand soothed over the child's back to calm him, the child's head burrowing into the soft spot at his handler's armpit.

Hohenheim's steps came without a sound, sliding his feet along the floor panels as he made his way down the hall. Standing in the doorway of the youngest child's room, the father concluded the son was to deep in his sleep to be woken by the sounds raging beyond his window. Cradled in a single arm, Alphonse lay silent as his father adjusted his boy's bed sheets and lay him down.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, Hohenheim watched as Alphonse sprawled out on his back; tiny fists clenched tight, lips cracked open, head rolled to the side. His smile curled as his hand ran through the child's downy hair. He burned the image of the sleeping child into his mind before gently kissing him on the forehead.

"Good night."

Somehow, Hohenheim suddenly found himself standing in the doorway of his wife's bedroom once again, the eyes of an ancient looked in. If he'd only relax his arm, it would be able to tremble freely, but he could not have that happen. He simply watched, burning another memory into his mind; Trisha resting on her back, the fingers of her left hand mixed into the sheets that were pulled up around her chest, the right arm fallen across the bed where Alphonse had once been. He could see the movement beneath her eyelids and wondered what she could be dreaming about. Nothing bad he assumed, there wasn't a flicker of tension in her expression.

He didn't realize that he'd walked from the door to the bedside; but there he sat, his hand gently sweeping away the strands of brown hair from her neck. She must be dreaming something wonderful, he thought, or she would not have looked so at peace where she lay. The hope for her to remain with blissful dreams was the final wish given by the husband for his wife. His lips coming to rest softly on her forehead, he would remain like that, unable to pick himself up.

The touch finally slipped away, only so far as to allow his forehead to rest against hers. The left hand slowly stroked a path through the lengths of hair spread out over the bed, while the other simply held Trisha at her cheek. He loved how warm her skin would always be to his touch. There was no way he could even begin to ask for her forgiveness.

He'd breathe, a deeper breath each time, trying to push away the feeling in his chest so he could get up and walk away. The inhale he wished for finally came, though merely strong enough so he could pull away; he could not subdue the knot. The tips of his fingers slipped off her cheek; he stood up, held her in his eyes one last time before walking towards Edward.

This child slept like a rag doll, content no matter how his father would hold him. His ear against his father's chest, Hohenheim carried the other son to his room as well. It was not that Edward's room was as noisy as Alphonse's, only that he'd been awake more recently, and his eyes fluttered as Hohenheim lay him down.

"No…" the father's thumb smoothed over the child's cheek.

Perched at the side of the bed, he waited for the eyelids to fall motionless again. Brushing away the blonde hair fallen over the boy's face, Hohenheim kissed him on the forehead as well.

"Make sure you sleep well."

If the wind and rain had not died down for a few moments, or perhaps if he'd been more sound asleep, Edward would never have heard his father's movement's as the man made his way downstairs.

The tired eyes slipped open once again. Rolling onto his stomach, he slipped from the bedside to his feet. Careful not to make a sound as he crept across the wooden floor, Ed's tiny hand finally reached for the doorknob of his bedroom door and pulled it open just enough for his eyes to peer through. He listened, and though drowned out by the noise created by the storm, he could still make out the sound his father's shoes made on the floor. Thought it did not last long enough to be remembered, it did last long enough to give him cause to move; Edward could not recall his father having his shoes on before.

He crossed into the hall, crouching down in that magical spot both he and Al had discovered; the place at the top of the stairs where they could see down into the house as they were sheltered in the protective darkness to watch.

The old man opened the door; Edward's eyes narrowed as the porch light shone in. The gusts of wind and rain began to blow through the house, but nothing seemed disturbed by it. The silhouette of his father, darkened by the light, stood in the doorframe… looking back inside. No matter how hard he searched, Edward was unable to make out the expression on his face, or the look in his eyes. He hoped that his father would not look up and scold him for getting out of bed. The young boy received his reprieve when the figure turned away and moved outside; right hand trailing behind to pull the wooden door closed without a sound.

He had left.

Edward rose from his crouch, his face twisting as he yawned and rubbed the sleep in his eyes. His father's departure was unquestioned. He dragged his feet back into his bedroom, crawling up onto the soft mattress, blankets and pillows.

And he kept on crawling, dropping off the other side of his bed. Ed ducked his head behind the curtains as he stepped onto the toy box beneath his window. Both his hands wiped away the thin fog layer on the pane of glass.

Beyond the smudged streaks and fingerprints, beyond the distortion of blistering wind and rain, Ed's half conscious eyes watched his father cut through the torrent weather, moving along the damp gravel path. The black coat tails and ties flailed in the wind, the length of blonde ponytail snapped around at each gust. Edward continued to watch, wondering why his father would go out without an umbrella. Again, he wiped the window; his warm breath fogging it up.

Edward would wave, if only his father would look back.

No matter how many times the boy would wipe the window to keep his father's path in sight, the old man never turned back. But that, Edward figured, was because he was supposed to be in bed. Dad wouldn't turn back to wave at him if he didn't realize there was someone there for him to wave at.

And though Edward could still make out the path his father took away from the household, the eldest son pulled his head out from behind the hanging curtains, stepped down from the toy box without a sound, and walked away from the scene beyond the window. He slipped into bed with the intention of sleeping the rest of the night through; in the morning, he could tell his father that he'd slept through the storm.

Engulfed by the pillows and surrounded by the sheets, Edward's tired eyes stared up at the ceiling. He surrendered himself up to the sleep demon that would burry this night in the back of his mind; never realizing that 'the morning' he'd again speak to his father, would not be the next.

* * *

Rizembool Verses - FIN

**

* * *

Chapter 69  
****  
German Verse – October 19, 1921  
**  
He couldn't tell you how long he'd sat there in his living room and not actually existed in it. But, Hohenheim thought, he had to pull himself away or become lost in a memory forever.

He blew out the candle in the middle of his table. It wasn't as though the room turned to complete darkness, it simply faded into it – staying light enough for him to watch the light trail of residual smoke drift around him. He needed to go to bed; the moment felt almost delusional.

He'd meant to climb the stairs to his room, but he stopped abruptly. At the top of the stairs sat Edward; his hair down, night shirt not quite buttoned tight around his neck and the extra half pant leg dangling down one of the steps. It was an uncomfortable observation for his father to make, how out of sorts Edward looked sitting there. People sit in positions – arms crossed, propped up on elbows, legs crossed, the simple act of putting two feet on the same stair were all unbalanced, disproportionate and simply impossible stances for him.

"Edward…?"

The call of his name caused Ed's hand to scratch the back of his head, glancing away to the corner without a response.

Hohenheim hated that uncomfortable sensation Ed gave him some days, the one that would not allow him to read into his son's motives. Ascending the staircase, the elder man continued with caution, "You should get to bed-"

"When mom died we were sitting at her bedside."

Hohenheim's movement ended, not three steps from where he'd begun. The startling conflict of emotions he found himself dealing with kept him under the control of Edward's every word.

Ed had yet to pick up his eyes to look at whom he was speaking with. The emotionally drained voice tried to remain in the empty state; it was easier that way, "we sat there, we'd been like that for days. She got sick so quickly, there was nothing anyone could do for her except try to make her feel comfortable."

Brow tightening momentarily, Hohenheim wondered if Edward did in fact understand how London had started off being for them.

"She didn't say so, but she was in a lot of pain, you could tell by looking at her. She was really pale, sweating lots, breathing heavily; her eyes didn't focus well. Her fever got really high and Aunt Pinako called the doctor who came over again… I'm sure he knew what was about to happen. The whole time I'm thinking 'this is my mom, she can't die'."

His words formed a statement that continued to carry a terrible lesson learnt.

"I didn't understand… obviously."

If Hohenheim could stand in front of that bathroom mirror, he would curse himself. He was no better than his infuriating son, "Edward, you don't need-"

"Mom made a request with her last words," three words from his son's mouth that stripped the man of conscious thought, "it wasn't some 'I love you', 'I never got to do this' or 'I'm sorry' sentiment. We knew mom loved us and we knew she didn't want us to be any sadder. So, she asked me to transmute some flowers for her. She died when she was making the request, so I transmuted the flowers I brought to her grave ever since."

The silence remained between the two in place where Hohenheim was supposed to have replied, but could not. Ed grabbed his hand firmly around the banister and came to stand once again. He hopped a couple steps to the top of the staircase, taking the crutch he'd left on the hall floor under his arm once more. Edward could feel his father's eyes watching him, and finally turned engage that gaze.

"Mom died and her last words were that she wanted me to transmute her some flowers. She smiled a bit, and said it was something you always did for her… and then she passed away."

The faint echo of the clock's tick passed through the silence Edward orchestrated.

"I suppose the last thing she was thinking about when she died was you."

Within the faint moonlit shadows created from beyond the bedroom windows at the ends of the hall, nothing could be sufficient in response.

"And that made her smile."

Neither of them would question, nor speak again, how the son got his father to bow his head.

"You're coming…"

The hazy, golden eyes flickered up from above the rim of his glasses .

"I'm not going to London with just Winry. This was your bad idea, so you're coming too, or I'm not going," the pale hall light left only a faint reflection of colour to glow off the morose gaze, "I'm not dealing with all your friends by myself."

Linguistic gratitude is an insufficient device. He would not say a word; the ability to speak long since stripped from his possession.

"I'll find that crappy old suitcase in the morning. I'm going to bed," his ponytail swept along his back as Edward turned away.

Remaining standing, third step from the bottom, Hohenheim absorbed what was left of the moment before discarding the notion of retiring to an empty bed. He'd instead returned to the darkened living room, where the resemblance of a family had slowly emerged. Wading through what remained of the lingering smoke, the old man took up the matches and relit his candle. He placed it on the fireplace mantle between the flowering potted plants that he maintained year round. Falling back into the comforts of his couch, his tired eyes watched the source of the unsteady flicker of light that barely lit the room. The yellow and orange hue flickered patterns off the petals and through the leaves of the flowers gracing the flame's sides. It was a display that did not carry the same radiance found in a Rizembool household; though it was something his wife would have cared for nonetheless.

**

* * *

To Be Continued...  
**

**

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Previous Chapter Feedback**

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	19. Existence Revisited

_Death is involuntary; it is the resultant state of an event._

_ A rebound from human transmutation is involuntary; it is the resultant state of a reaction._

The separation of the mind, body and soul is involuntary; it is a resultant state of my actions.

When you deal directly with the Gate, it is a 'take' and 'give' scenario. The Gate takes from you and gives whatever it deems most appropriate back. It's a greedy entity; it's not looking to make anyone happy.

The Gate takes your mind and soul upon separation at death.  
The Gate takes from your existence when you cannot create a proper formula.

The Gate takes that man's bonds of existence because I offered them.

But, if you step up to the Gate, give yourself of your own free will - the Gate acquires all of you and gives back. Edward Elric left nothing for the Gate to take – he gave everything. That doesn't make the game fun. The Gate could at least 'take' the existence bonds from each person I placed before it because I merely facilitated the opportunity, I am not the one participating in the sacrifice.

It's rare to encounter anyone that 'generous' to the Gate.

But now, the Gate has the problem: what to do with your existence?

It only stores what it takes.  
It cannot send you back.  
It most certainly cannot keep you like you are at its pillars.

So, what does it do with you?

* * *

**Chapter 70 - Existence Revisited**

"Edward?" Hohenheim's hand finally came down onto the young man's shoulder. The grip stiffened when his son jerked with a gasping startle in response.

Quickly silent, Ed looked around the darkened room to gather his bearings, soon realizing that he'd lost his crutch to the floor. His father's hand had re-gripped beneath his only arm to keep him from falling.

"Lay down. You can't sleep standing against the wall."

Oh that's right, he'd gotten up to get some water but put his empty shoulder against the wall when his back had started to ache again. Years ago he'd been cut, stabbed, tossed around, and beaten up more times than he could shake a stick at, but he'd always bounced back. It wasn't so easy to do that anymore. Ed would chalk up his pain and exhaustion to yet another quirk for the other side of the gate – as annoying as all the others.

"Did I wake Winry up?"

He'd woken her up at least twice since they'd left. There was a sound he couldn't shake from his ears and a vision haunting his mind. The sound triggered the vision that would twist and play tricks on him so quickly that he couldn't adjust to the illusion. In Berlin and in Brussels, the early morning backfire of a car's engine was all he needed to hear to set that in motion. With a gasping start, he'd fling himself awake to break from it. His heart racing without just cause, Edward would fall silent and curse himself: why was he not mentally strong enough to combat this? He'd been able to handle so much already. It was too frustrating to bog himself down with it, regardless of how it did not seem to relent with each passing day.

At least his hand had finally stopped trembling.

"No, she's fine," Hohenheim answered the rhetorical question, though the hotel room in Dunkerque was small enough Ed could see for himself.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, silent again, Ed closed his dried out eyes with the hope his headache would go away and the burning would stop.

"Lay down and get some rest."

The voice was a little more instructive this time, but sitting up or lying down didn't change much; he couldn't sleep. It had been that way for days…

"…Edward"

Shut up. Just shut up. He was so sick of hearing his name. A carnival of things would set him off, his father's nagging voice was no exception. Like an overtired, cranky child, he moved away from the edge of the bed, sliding along the mattress until he could finally burry his face in the pillow. Ed could care less if he could breathe, his mind was busy throwing incoherent, irrational thoughts about. He wanted them to stop; he was too tired to organize them. Yelling at his father for no good reason would make him feel better by venting frustrations, but not at this pre-dawn hour.

The mattress at Edward's side sunk when his father sat down beside him. The two coexisted in an uneasy peace before Hohenheim caught Edward's attention. Turning his head, the younger man pulled his face out of the pillow, "Could you not-"

The knuckles of his father's index and middle fingers dug into his lower back along his spine, silencing Ed who flinched beneath the pressure.

"You should say something if your back is bothering you."

This argument had been in existence for as long as Edward had existed beyond the Gate. Ed had frowned upon himself for many of the early days in London. At the time, he'd bitterly likened himself to a crotchety, frail old man – through no fault of his own. His neck, back, head, chest, stomach; most everything from the waist up added to a list of miseries that gave him cause to be ornery and Hohenheim would take it upon himself to remedy that. It was one of the few things he could do to ease the stress, Hohenheim worked on Ed's back and neck in the London hospital and later after he'd gone 'home'. He eventually lost the battle with Hohenheim; unable to order his father to bugger off when he'd found himself too worn down by illness and physical exhaustion to protest. What annoyed Edward more than his father's constant presence, more than his father's persistent attention, was how well it worked; even if it was only a soothing hand, which had a tendency to put him to sleep. From his unwilling surrender, Edward discovered Hohenheim was able to offer a sliver of peaceful sanctuary at a devastating and very demoralizing point in time.

Never the less, it would be a cold day in hell before he'd gratify that.

"What time is it?" the murmur seeped out from the pillow.

"Nearly four."

Ed sighed, it was long past one when he'd finally laid down and around three when he'd gotten up again. He must have been leaning against that wall for some time before Hohenheim had found him, "What time's the ferry leaving?"

"Eight thirty."

"Then you know what, why don't I just stay up," digging his arm into the bed, he pushed his chest off the mattress, "two or three hours of sleep won't do me any good."

The stronger hand stopped Edward from getting up; holding him at the back of his neck, "Get as much sleep as you can, tomorrow's a long day."

Giving up far too easily, he let himself drop back onto the bed. Ed turned exhausted, bloodshot eyes angrily against his father, the vicious sound in his late-night tone rose, "Why don't you go to sleep?"

"Unlike some people, I went to bed at nine o'clock last night," Hohenheim pushed his thumb in high at the back of Edward's neck. Hohenheim frowned, watching Ed's involuntary flinch from a spot that liked to knot up on him, "How much longer did you two keep working?"

"Just after midnight," Ed dug his forehead into the pillow, "Winry couldn't get a thing done when we were on the train… it was too bouncy, she kept screwing up. She didn't want to go to bed until the ankle coil worked right."

"Did she get it?" he glanced over to her sleeping figure, curled up tight beneath the covers, not as use to the late fall, early winter chill as the others in the room were.

"She'd still be up if she hadn't," rolling his shoulder to get his father's hand away from the sore cramp in his neck, Ed slipped his arm beneath the pillow and dug his chin into the softness, "this IS Winry, after all."

Sitting back, Hohenheim allowed the faint resemblance of a grin to form on his face. Smoothing his hands over his own loose hair, pulling the free gold strands over his shoulders, he gazed out into the small space of the room the three of them had cluttered up. A deep breath was taken before his voice rose again.

"I spoke with Thomas on the phone the other day," the father took a lesson from his son and delivered an uneasy message without easing into the subject. The Hyland family was not something they had discussed since leaving London, each for their own personal reasons. The family would enter his thoughts from time to time and sat at the forefront during the train ride through Europe. He wondered how receptive Winry would be to the family, one of many reasons Edward did not want to return to London.

Waiting for Ed to pipe up, Hohenheim found himself with a great deal of relief when he said nothing at all, allowing the statement to digress, "they wanted us to come over for supper when we get into London, I told him we'd be delighted."

Hohenheim's concern lay with his son's reaction to his mention of the Hyland family, where as Edward's silent concern rested with the uncertainty of how to approach the subject matter. The father did not expect a resounding acceptance of the invitation, he did not even expect a compliancy response; Ed concurred by not speaking up. For each of them, it was a different sort of unease as they remained in each other's company.

"If it had been just Winry and I, he'd have insisted we stay with them," Ed severed the nerves between them, choosing to follow a train of thought different from his father's, "it wouldn't have mattered what you'd arranged with Dr. Wilson."

His gaze cast down in thought, Hohenheim's expression softened at the statement, "I know."

They both allowed the silence to creep in once more. Hohenheim's unease rose with each second his presence at the side of the bed went unquestioned. The exhausted body lay awake next to him, unwilling to surrender to any type of sleep.

Their existence in each other's presence carried the cohesion of a distorted dream rudely interrupted by relentless insomnia.

"Why did you stay in London for Thomas' wedding?"

Delivered in blunt Edward Elric fashion, this question would have come up eventually; Hohenheim realized that it was only a matter of time before his son asked. He knew that there had been external circumstances that had kept Ed generally withdrawn on the train ride from Munich to Dunkerque. Winry had recognized it too, but Hohenheim knew that the question had existed in the back of his son's mind for much longer than that.

In the spring of 1919, they had planned to detour through Greece before arriving in Munich for the fall semester. Eager to dissect the ancients of the country, Ed had left before his father, but Hohenheim had never met up with his son again until Munich.

Composing his thoughts, Hohenheim's hand came up and smoothed over his bristly, golden beard. The doubt within himself prevented him from distinguishing Edward's true motivation for the question: was it derived from jealousy, frustration, disappointment, or sheer curiosity?

During his first winter in London, it had been the Hyland children who'd exposed Edward to something beyond the sulking misery of his father's home. Thomas, two years his senior, and Julie, three years his junior, found Edward to be some sort of phenomena, or 'charity project' as Ed described the situation. With as much subtle encouragement as Hohenheim could put forth, the two young adults had dragged the miserable blonde out from within the household confinements and into society. Not that venturing into the city was something Edward had avoided, there was no denying his swell of curiosity about the city, let alone the country; but it was a venture he had preferred to move solo on.

As time moved forwards, Edward had curiously kept an eye on Thomas's venture into university. It became a tenure that had accidentally sparked Edward's re-interest in alchemy at his point beyond the Gate. Up until that time, when Thomas had been able to open a window for Edward to jump from, the Elric had viewed alchemy practices beyond the Gate as not only impossible but viewed the texts as extremely misleading to any novice who could not realize the severity of the errors. He had become viciously critical of what little documentation he'd found until that point, mainly due to fundamental flaws in most frameworks. However, the post secondary libraries not only had far better documentation, but they had an arrow pointing to ancient Greece as well.

Something profound existed in those words; concealed between the lines of documents. They were documents rewritten into standard English by a 'modern' society lacking the basic alchemical understanding to grasp the astonishing concepts found in the pages. Suddenly an endless ocean existed in his path, willfully polluted with scarce fragments of overwhelming wisdom he'd never even dreamed of.

And he couldn't even use it.

Ed's drive to return home had peaked and cascaded with relentless force on a fair summer's night that he and his father had been invited to the Hyland house for dinner, The dinner was a conglomerate of guests, the vast majority of which were Thomas' acquaintances from school, and that became the night the London sky collapsed around the Elrics and drove an emotional wedge between the two families.

It would take over a half a year before Edward would walk away from it; his father slow to follow, much to Edward's quiet dismay.

"A few weeks before the wedding, Thomas told me that they were expecting a baby. They hadn't told either of their parents, because if they had, they'd have been furious. His parents were sick and that flu was showing no mercy, so they asked for my support for as long I could provide it. Things were getting hard for that family; I couldn't turn their request down."

Hohenheim's hands slipped over his knees and the father pushed himself to his feet, slowly taking a deep breath as he moved.

"I stayed and I helped until I was able to get in at the university," his eyes flickered down to Edward; his son's head remained turned away, unable to make any eye contact or judge a facial expression, "I know that you wanted to remove yourself from that situation…"

Ed scoffed, the sound muffled by the pillow.

"But, beyond that, I needed to be there to watch it all happen – even if it was for my own 'selfish' reasons."

With his face turned away, Edward lay listening as his father moved about the room. The sound of the sheets came and went, the sound of the mattress being laid upon faded, and the sound of their breathing was all that remained in the darkness before sunrise.

"Did Julie get to hold the baby?"

Inside the humane bubble he so carefully guarded, Edward had harboured that question for over two years. Sadly, he would receive the answer that had kept him from ever asking.

"No, she didn't."

The butter knife shaved a little more of that humanity away from the wrong side of the gate as Edward curled up just a little, golden slits peering out from behind sore eyelids.

"That's too bad," his arm stretched under his pillow, slowly curling beneath his head.

* * *

"Hey babe," Havoc's cigarette slipped to the corner of his mouth, the heels of his boots landing on Mustang's desk, "you must have been busy earlier, I called but no one picked up."

Breda, Fury, and Falman picked their curious eyes up from the paperwork scattered across their worktable.

"Oh, no, I'm just glad you called me before I stepped out," with his boots hooked onto the edge of the desk and a stupid grin painted on, Havoc slouched deeper into the seat, "I'd have been disappointed if I'd missed hearing the lovely sound of your voice."

"He doesn't give up, does he?" Falman gave a faint smirk.

"Oh yeah? Yeah there was a lot of excitement the other night, huh?" A lecherous grin grew into Havoc's smile, "let me know when you're up for another one of those nights, we can make it a weekend."

Fury's brow rose, glancing between his companions as the three men made it no secret that they were listening, "Should the Lieutenant really be discussing things like that on the office phone?"

"You should hear him with the receptionist downstairs," Breda rolled his eyes, snorting out a laugh.

"Hey it's Thursday, I'm good for this weekend if you're up for it. I've got a quiet little spot not too far from your place; we can curl up there for some peace and…eh?"

Without flinching, the three sets of eyes and ears that had been working so diligently were now trained upon Havoc.

"Your mother's in town?"

A collective snort burst at the table, the men grinning to themselves as Havoc's expression slowly fell.

"Well hey, I'm game for dinner with your mom…" catching his audience from the corner of his eye, Havoc kicked the chair away from the desk, spinning until all they could see was the back of his seat. The grip on the Lieutenant's boots stuck perfectly against the window glass and Havoc returned to lounging in the room's most important chair.

Breda's laugh was the loudest, smirking at the other two officers, "Hey, it's Havoc, just ignore it."

"I'm not so sure Havoc should be making those kinds of calls on the secure office line though," pushing his glasses tight against the bridge of his nose, Fury gave a cautious shake of his head, "he could get in a lot of-"

A familiar creak snatched the trio's attention, shooting their focus to the office door, watching the wooden plug swung wide.

"… Shit."

The officers shot to their feet, stiffened hands stapled to their foreheads in salute for General Hakuro as hthe man stepped into the room. Following directly at his back was Lt. Colonel Armstrong, whose unusually steadfast and harsh expression sent a nervous wave through the chests of the three onlookers as the two superior officers moved through the room. The inquisitive eyes drifted over their shoulders as they watched the Lt. Colonel and General stop their approach at the front of Lt. Havoc's temporary desk. Nervous, with a twinge of curiosity, excitement, and fear for their friend, the three lowest ranked officers held the situation in their sights.

"Does around seven sound good? Alright, that sounds fine. I'll drop by about ten to seven; we can chat with your mom for twenty minutes, and head out maybe quarter after? I'll make the dinner arrangements for 7:30."

The midday sun did not allow Armstrong's looming shadow to cast over the Lieutenant; else, he would have realized much sooner what stood at his back.

"Alright babe, see you then," with Havoc's reluctant sigh, the conversation ended and his feet slipped from the window, "damn…"

It was Hakuro who wasted no time bringing the office to order, "Lieutenant."

Slowly, a wide, wary set of blue eyes peered around the leather chair before Havoc's moments exploded, spinning around and snapping to his feet. Suddenly entangled in the telephone cord, the length of the cord came up short and the phone tumbled off the desk, taking a stack of paperwork with it.

Silently, Armstrong shook his head as they allowed the suddenly disorganized officer a moment to pick up the mess he'd created.

"Sorry, Sirs," the cigarette fluttering in Havoc's teeth, "I had no idea you were coming this afternoon."

"Obviously."

Hakuro's blunt response tightened the tension strung through all listening ears.

"Gentlemen," Hakuro turned his relatively pleasant expression over to the onlookers, "would you excuse us for a few minutes?"

Havoc ventured an uncertain eye towards his colleagues, watching as they swiftly exited the room at the General's command. Havoc pulled his cigarette from his teeth and slipped it behind his ear, wondering what the heck was going on – the General and Armstrong were an odd couple at best.

"… Sir?"

Armstrong's harsh tone came crashing down upon Havoc, "Who were you speaking with on the phone, Lieutenant?"

His show of surprise was withheld, and his rising alarm kept under guard. Havoc ran questions through his mind, concerned why Armstrong was playing this game. The Lt. Colonel knew perfectly well who he'd been talking to, Armstrong had been the one who'd arranged for the call from Major Hawkeye to be re-routed from the receptionist's desk on the second floor to the office. The conversation was modified from an old Mustang tactic; he knew how to read it. What kind of situation was bringing this sudden performance on?

"My girlfriend, Sir?"

"Perhaps you should restrict your personal calls, Lieutenant…" his attention over his shoulder, Hakuro watched as the door finally clicked shut before returning his focus to the matter at hand, "to a time when you are not in the office."

"My deepest apologies, General," Havoc watched the disapproving look in the general's eyes, "I'll use more discretion next time."

Hakuro gave a light shake of his head towards Havoc, "Lieutenant, you need to show more than discretion, I'm afraid."

His jaw stiffened, "Of course, Sir, my sincerest apologies. It won't happen again."

"That's not what I meant," the general's arms folded, casting a blazing look of disappointment over the officer, "I'll be frank with you Lt. Havoc, your name has been thrown around a great number of times to be placed under performance watch, probation, and even investigation."

Havoc's hands slipped to his sides, the uncertainty and concern suddenly boiled within him, "May I ask what for?"

"Far too many of your reports have been late, misfiled or simply misplaced before reaching the government authorities. The activity logs for many of the people stationed in Brigadier General Mustang's division, which you are currently overseeing, have been poorly compiled and seem erroneous. The brass has become increasingly critical of your performance and are pushing to place you under probationary observation for the inability you've displayed in handling your position efficiently," sighing, Hakuro let his posture loosen, though his tone remained directive, "Lt. Colonel Armstrong pushed for me to come and discuss this with you before any action was taken. You should thank him; after the Marketplace reports went missing you were walking on thin ice with many people in investigations, not to mention the government. If your performance does not straighten out, I'm afraid you will have to be dealt with. Take this as your last warning, Lieutenant. I have no problem reassigning this office to one of my direct subordinates, regardless of anything Brigadier General Mustang has to say."

It was an unsettling implication, Havoc's actions were being monitored, far more closely than he'd suspected. He couldn't fathom how the brass came to realize all of his deliberate misfiling; he'd buried them so deeply in the military's mess that there should have been no way. Armstrong must have suspected or known about the suspicion and used the General as his method of conveying the dire need for silence. If the General's impromptu visit was the only way Armstrong could relay the message, it had to be serious. This exchange would become as much information as Havoc would get from the Lt. Colonel here on out. The independent investigation into Izumi would have to be pulled, as well as the one for Winry. He'd probably have to divulge the Winry case to the police if he wanted to have anything done for her now. His thoughts raced, doing a mental check that the records regarding the custody of Brigitte, Lt. Ross's leave and Broche's transfer north were as secure as he could have made them.

"Lieutenant Havoc."

The man's attention was grabbed again by the General's powerful tone.

"Ensure that your behaviour straightens out, you've kept an outstanding service record until now. I'm sharing this information with you as a courtesy."

His hand stiffening, Havoc's right hand shot to his temple, "Yes, Sir."

With the nod of his head, Hakuro turned away from the desk without a word, Armstrong following in stride. Nothing more was said between the two parties as the lumbering Lt. Colonel followed the General out. Flicking his cigarette from his ear, to his fingers, and back into his teeth. Havoc turned his back to the door, projecting his concerns out the window. Folding his arms, he listened for the door to click shut while the deep, troubling concerns to coursed through his veins.

"…Son of a bitch."

* * *

**London, England. November 15, 1916**

How absurd.

His hand missed the keyhole. It was unsteady; such an uneasy feeling to be so out of sorts. This shouldn't have been so uncomfortable.

Bundled tight in his scarf and jacket to keep the bitterly cold chill away, Ed's attention was elsewhere as his father fought with the deadbolt and doorknob. There was the skiff of snow blanketing the fallen leaves, the curious age of the buildings, and the growing interest about the destinations of the streets. The final passing thought was how horribly tacky the 'Welcome' mat on the doorstep was.

"Edward, you'll freeze if you stay outside in the cold," holding the door open, Hohenheim looked back to the porch pillar Ed leaned up against.

With a deep breath, Ed found himself trying to clear his throat, enjoying how nice the frozen air felt to ingest.

"Edward…?"

"For fuck's sake," his disgruntled voice snarled as he pushed away from the pillar, "I heard you the first time."

It was awkward. The last time Ed had been like this, Aunt Pinako had given him the spare leg she kept around. He'd never been so unbalanced for any length of time before, and for the life of him, he could not get used to it. His right calf burned, though he said nothing about it and opted to ignore it.

The last time Ed had stood for so long he'd had two good legs, even if that was only for a brief few hours.

He'd shift more weight to the crutch under his only arm, except that he'd done far too much of that already. The muscles in his shoulder were stiff & sore, plus his fingers had a tendency to go numb. The less the shoulder hurt, the less irritation the muscles and nerves in his neck and back felt. The sore leg was far away from everything else that hurt, he'd deal with that annoyance on its own.

Standing in the hallway, he squinted, adjusting to the inside light. His pale, drained expression slowly panned through the open kitchen attached to the front entrance. The dusty, golden eyes combed the wooden surface of the room, accented by earth-toned towels, dishcloths, and table placemats. Unable to place what it was that tickled his nose, Ed could have sworn that the house smelled vaguely like vanilla.

He startled as Hohenheim took hold of the scarf's end and began unraveling it from around his neck. Opting for the pain in his shoulder rather that the assistance of his father, Ed pulled away. Defiantly, his hand gave a firm yank on the scarf, allowing it to unwind and fall upon the floor. Holding steady with the support under his arm, Edward took to unbuttoning the long jacket.

Without a word, Hohenheim picked the scarf up from the floor.

Ed's hand eventually fell away from his task, his head and eyes remaining downcast while his irritation once again swelled. Slitting his eyes, Ed's hand clenched around the crutch trying to prevent himself from shaking with infuriation at the battle he was loosing with his jacket and the last two buttons at his knees. He could have sat down on the floor to finish the task, but then the old man would have to pick him up; he wasn't even strong enough, let alone able, to pull himself up.

Ed gave no acknowledgement when Hohenheim took care of the last two buttons.

"Have a seat at the kitchen table and take off your shoes…"

Ed kept his eyes away but his tongue seemed more willing to dance about, "Just one damn shoe."

"… And put it on the mat," the interjection did not faze Hohenheim's careful tone, "have a look around if you like, I need to tidy a few things upstairs."

He didn't dare do any more for his son, even if he felt Edward would be better off if he did. There was nothing the alienated father could do to stop the raging aura of frustration that would flare up; he could only look for hints that Ed was looking for a verbal combatant and diffuse the situation by stepping away. Edward's insatiable, vicious, verbal assaults had snapped on the hospital staff, and had snapped on him over the most ridiculous of issues. Hohenheim found it best to simply allow Ed to simmer down on his own or they'd both wind up at their wits end.

Flopping down into the wooden kitchen chair, Ed held a long exhale. He looked back through the room, frowning at the trail his shoe had made across the floor. Crossing the right leg over the left stump to unbuckle his boot, he let it fall from his sore toes and land with a dead clunk on the floor. Picking up on a passing thought, Ed considered poking around for something to drink but decided that his head was too heavy to care about what was inside his father's home. Ed turned to face the square, wooden table; he put his chin down on the blissfully cool surface, chilled by the opened crack of the window for fresh air. His head was hurting again – 'again', as in more than the normal pain – it made his eyes ache and he wrapped his arm around his face to bring that to an end. Emerging from the silence of his own discomfort, Ed's ears focused solely on the sounds of birds toughing out the winter as it filtered in from just beyond the glass panes. Ed's mind intensified the sound; he hadn't heard the birds that clearly since the last summer night he'd spent in Rizembool. He engulfed himself in it, lived within it, enjoyed it, and used it to extinguish the echoing reminders of the hospital noises that danced the back of his mind.

It all vanished when he started to cough again.

Ed winced, the abused muscles at the back of his neck and shoulders strained as he tried to bring it under control. He hated how the sound of his own breathing wheezed in his eardrums. He'd continue to try and clear his throat of the feeling, even if it rarely worked. The thought of getting a drink from the tap was completely dismissed; the patience to figure out which cupboard housed the glasses wasn't present.

But this reminder of illness was easier to deal with than others; he could walk it off. Taking hold of his crutch, Ed pulled himself to his feet. 'Have a look around' he'd been told – why not? If he was going to have to stay here, he may as well know his way around.

Moving towards the hallway, an unidentifiable 'something' caught Ed's attention and he paused to look back. Tired, sunken eyes scanned the kitchen, trying to shed some light upon what it was that seemed to sit out of place. There was nothing he could recall, and as far as he was concerned, this whole world was out of place. The feeling was dismissed.

Edward didn't get very far, Hohenheim's house was not big and with no more than a few steps down a rug-covered hall he found himself in what must have been the 'family room'. The small brown couch and large rocking chair flanked the centerpiece table; everything seemed to face the screened off fireplace. The sheer white curtains were pulled while the thicker drapes remained open, a scattering of potted greenery accented the room, his quilt was folded over the back of the couch while the newspaper he'd picked up earlier that day had ended up at the table. Ed curled his nose slightly at the whole situation; it didn't have to look so pleasant, did it?

Tightening his frown, he wrote the room into memory. Ed freed his hand from the wooden support long enough to snatch the blue and green quilt from the back of the couch. Stumbling his way around, Ed let the crutch clatter off the floor while he let himself fall into the soft confines of the cushions.

He wasn't interested in sitting there for long. Placing the blanket on the floor, he slipped off the seat, straightening the blanket beneath him as he shifted. Ed stretched out his tired leg along the floor and lazily slouched over the low table. His hand reached out and flipped the pages of the newspaper before him, even though he'd read it twice already.

Nothing within the pages was interesting; it was all about the war and he was really fed up with hearing about it. It was rare to find something within the paper that did not directly result from something to do with the war, and he simply didn't care about it. Flipping the paper closed, Ed leaned his forehead against the table's edge, relaxing his shoulders and letting his body drain of tension. Eventually, his arm slipped between his forehead and the table's edge to prevent a permanent crease from developing on his brow.

It was so quiet in this house.

The peace was so much of a comfort that he couldn't claw enough energy to dispute. It was an outrageous slap in the face that his old man had a place of silent sanctuary. Constantly in motion, the hospital continually drifted in and out of chaos regardless of the time of day. He'd grown accustomed to blocking it out and finally sleeping through it; but now, beneath Hohenheim's roof, tranquility existed. Ed took refuge in the knowledge that there was no one around to watch him enjoy it.

_It started over 2 months ago upon the cold cobblestone street, glazed with water and sprinkled with debris. The raging sound of a fire, the nearby building collapsing, people's screams had been drowned out by the sound of his own pulse banging in his head. The severe dissociation with the world left him delirious. Before realizing that he was even in London, Ed had realized that he was without his arm and leg once again. His wounds were fresh and open, the precious limbs Alphonse had given him for a few fleeting hours had been ripped off his body. Lying silent, soaking in his own blood within the street, the murky red mixture of blood and street filth soaked his hair and dampened his clothes. There was nothing he could do about his wounds._

Edward had never forgotten what it had felt like to loose his arm and his leg to the Gate, but this pain was far beyond unbearable and felt nothing like the first time. The memory of the Gate's reclamation of his limbs was non-existent. Awareness of his first moments after returning to London soon vanished. He had no idea who found him or when he ended up in a hospital bed. At the time, Ed could not understand why this instance completely overwhelmed him. He came to understand that nothing felt the same as it did back home; it was an irreparable imbalance to his existence that could not be corrected beyond the Gate.

There it was again. Ed's forehead pulled away from where it rested; if he were going to start coughing again he'd rather not be hitting his head into a solid object. He'd learned to keep his eyes shut or the pain in his neck, that started high on his neck and ran along each side of his spine, would hurt his eyes just that much more at every convulsion. His arm trembled slightly as Ed gripped the table's edge to remain balanced; cheeks burning, ears ringing, eyes watering. His fist would find its way through the wall if he could ever find the energy to do so.

_In the dark silence of his mind, he remembered the sudden insurgence of an unidentifiable voice stating that his injuries were serious and they would see how he faired the night. Yet, in the morning, he cracked an eye open in the early morning, cleared his throat of a nasty feeling, and asked where he was. That verbal exchange was the last time Edward willingly held a conversation with the staff. Their questions came and he could not answer them: place of birth, address, phone number, parents, relatives, contacts, school, doctor, priest… all he provided was his name and age._

Starting later that evening and continuing on for the next several weeks, Edward's recollection of the hospital stay came to around seventy-two hours. At first, when he'd made the passing comment about how he felt like utter shit, he'd been told that they were worried he'd picked up an infection, possibly in his bloodstream, when he'd been in the street. It was to be the cause of his rising fever, chills, and swelling lethargy. The misdiagnosis was satisfactory until Ed began awakening amidst dizzying and breathless sweats. He fell to the ailment too quickly to understand what was happening. The dizzying disconnection with reality gained a moment of coherency at the command of Hohenheim's hand slapping his burning cheek. According to the estranged father, they'd been holding a disjointed conversation about how to raise Aquoria out of the water by making it float somehow. It wasn't until Ed gave a coherent, though incensed, response that Hohenheim understood the young man hadn't even realized whom he'd been talking to until that moment, let alone been aware of the left-field conversation.

Edward cursed while undoing the top button of his loose, white collared shirt. The two nerves pinching high on his neck tightened with every convulsion. Balanced awkwardly by the shorter leg stump, Ed rose to his 'knees'. The dryer his lips got, the hotter his cheeks burned; the hotter he felt, the more difficult Edward found it to breathe. The frustrated fist Ed lifted above his head never reached a downswing. Startled, his eyes widened at the muscular hand that gripped beneath his chin. Before Ed realized what was going on, a second hand came down not once, but twice, high across his back. If there had not been that stronger hand, the weakened Elric would have crumpled to the ground.

_Around the time the cough developed, Hohenheim told his viciously miserable and volatile son that the doctors had re-diagnosed him with pneumonia. The statement ended a frustration filled, one-sided argument in which Edward had been telling his old man to stay the fuck away from him for any and every reason he could dream up. He didn't ask his father what that was… exactly, but not long after the man left his bedside he asked one of the nurses. The question was an honest one on Ed's part, but it did nothing but concern the hospital staff about his state of mind, something that was already in severe doubt. To rub salt into the frustration wound, no one did him the courtesy of answering the question._

At some point the question was relayed to Hohenheim. Quietly the next afternoon, as Ed had buried his burning, aching face into the lifeless hospital pillow, the father's hand slipped into his son's loose, tangled mess of hair and the old man crouched down beside his bed. It was odd for the noise in the ward to be so low, and Hohenheim's voice slipped in beneath the existing hum. The words Edward reluctantly listened to finally explained that where Amestris excelled in alchemy, this world excelled in mechanics. Where medical science flourished at home, here, chemical and biological sciences were only in their infancy. This world had diseases that were treatable back home, or abolished, or simply non-existent. Neither of their systems had immunities for what lurked in this civilization. Before Ed gathered up the energy to slap the hand away, Hohenheim presented the crushing tone of voice that set him apart from every other man and established a foundation for the hierarchy between father and son. He would make it perfectly clear that there was no medical procedure that would fix what was happening. His lungs were infected, filling with fluid and if he didn't want to die from it he was going to have to do away with the chip on his shoulder for a little while.

"Did it clear?"

Even if Ed wanted to tell Hohenheim something to the contrary, whatever was sitting up in his lungs had moved, and the crackle in his breathing had dispersed. Exhausted, he closed his eyes, focusing on catching his breath, fighting off the persistent cough.

Why, of all the people in the world, was he under _his_ care? Why did _he_ get to see him in such a terrible state? With each passing day his self-respect and pride would be chiseled away a little more. Ed's inability to care for himself was degrading enough, and then to allow assistance from one of the last people he wanted to have around was infuriating. The damned old man had no right, no right to him at all. Yet, no matter what Ed had screamed at him, the fool always returned. His constant presence and insistence that he could play some sort of guardian's role would continually drive him mad.

_In the end, it wasn't as though Edward could get up and walk into the city life; the most frustrating part of his reluctant agreement to the man's presence was that Ed chose to be with him. It was a terrible pill to have to digest, the idea he would rather stay under his old man's care than be sent off to some facility._

The choice was his to make. Would he carry the title of being his father's son? Or, would he allow himself to be sent to a care facility and permit the world to label him 'disabled'? Eventually, he chose the former.

Ed never realized the exact moment he'd finally stopped coughing, though he was perfectly aware Hohenheim was still at his side when the old man picked him up and put him face down on the couch. Taking one of the pillows, Ed scrunched it up beneath his face, listening as Hohenheim picked the quilt off the floor. Before the blanket fell over him, Ed peeked out to the room and quickly caught the barren surface of the coffee table. Yet again, something in this house was out of place.

Loosing interest and turning away, Ed's hidden expression soured when Hohenheim sat down next to him. His nose wrinkled when the old man's hand came to rest on the middle of his back.

"There's a room upstairs for you, did you want to sleep in it tonight?"

"No."

"Do you want something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry."

Glancing towards the curtain drawn window, Hohenheim slowly shook his head, "You haven't eaten since quarter after seven this morning, you should–"

"Are you fuckin' deaf?" Ed's answer was far more forceful than the first monotone response, "I said I'm not hungry."

Hohenheim kept his voice quiet, attempting to preserve the remaining peace within the house, "I'll leave a cup of tea on the table for you, alright?"

"It's your house, I don't give a damn what you do," even if his voice was lacking volume, the complete disregard for his father's gesture was prevalent.

Yet, there was no movement on Hohenheim's part. Ed shut his eyes again, hoping to block the world out. It was not long before he felt his father's hand rub over his aching back. His patience had ground to nothing long ago and Ed childishly wondered if the old man was deliberately trying to aggravate him today. Laying silent, summoning his strength, Ed tried to find the energy to lay down his definite position that he wanted Hohenheim to screw off. Before he'd be given a chance to snap his tongue, he heard the house door close. Wondering who on earth could be coming in, Ed quickly looked at the coffee table as the newspaper landed on it, jiggling the teacup.

Ed blinked; so that's what had been missing from the table, "I already looked at it, just throw it out."

"No, you read yesterday's paper," Hohenheim's voice mused.

"No," Ed began to wiggle himself upright, "I bought a new paper from the kid outside the hospital."

"I know," the corner of Hohenheim's lips had curled as he stood behind the couch, "but that was yesterday morning."

"_No_, it was _this_ morning," waiting for his father to retort, Ed's aggressive disposition slowly slipped away the longer he looked at the man, watching the faint concern on his face. The argument slowly crumbled to dust. Suddenly concerned, Ed's attention turned to the paper on the table. His complexion couldn't have grown any paler when he realized the old man was right, the front page was entirely different. A knot twisted in his chest as he reached out and stuck a finger into the cold tea sitting on the table.

"You were just…" Ed's shoulders sank as he tried to adjust the situation in his mind. Among a million other concerns, he asked himself how Hohenheim ended up behind the couch when he'd just been sitting next to him.

Picking up on the disoriented feeling Edward threw about the room, Hohenheim drifted to his armchair and allowed the boy time to organize his thoughts.

"You put me on the couch and asked if I wanted something to eat. I said no, you said you'd leave me… tea," his eyes narrowed at the cold teacup on the table, " you put your hand on me and I was going to tell you to screw off… but then the paper landed on the table…"

"Edward," barely seated, Hohenheim soon realized something was missing, "you were tired, it was one in the morning…"

"No it wasn't."

"… I rubbed your back for nearly an hour, you were sound asleep."

It was out of character, and with the misunderstanding of his day the distraught tone in his voice strengthened, "We got here at 1:30 in the afternoon. I was in the kitchen, then I came in here, looked at the paper, and then I couldn't stop coughing…" his expression interrogated Hohenheim for an explanation.

"You fell asleep in the kitchen. You had your face in your arm when I came down, it didn't look like you were going to fall out of the chair so I left you there. I put your shoe away on the mat and cleaned up the floor," he looked on as Ed's expression fell, realizing what it was that had been bothering him when he'd left the kitchen, "you were there for three… maybe four hours. I found you in here later, sitting on the floor; you had your head down on the table. I put the paper in the trash. I didn't hear anything from you until around nine o'clock when you started coughing. It took a while to fade, but you fell asleep," Hohenheim's expression softened to counter the mortified look developing on Edward's face, "I didn't move you until around one because I didn't want to wake you up, but thought you might want a real bed. I left the tea on the table before I went upstairs."

"That whole day went by…" at the edge of his seat, leaning over the coffee table, Ed's eyes focused on the 'incorrect' date of the paper. It was shameful, it was _embarrassing_, and his father had been around the whole time – to watch over him, to care for him, to ensure his safety – as he unwillingly demonstrated his best attempt at narcolepsy. The inability to function normally, to care for himself, to simply unbutton his coat, was getting more infuriating with each passing day. 'Edward Elric' couldn't possibly be this dysfunctional. He was aware that he'd slept a great deal at the hospital; there were points where he'd been so under the weather that he'd lost _days_ at a time. For some reason, that was easier to rationalize; not only had he been in a spot where there were no time and date reminders allowing him to realize what he'd missed, but when you're in a hospital, you're supposed to sleep! A few weeks back he hadn't even realized what month it was until someone had mentioned it in passing. But now, if he felt fine enough to be up and walking around, what the hell was his body thinking it was doing?

"Edward, you're not feeling well, there's nothing wrong with that."

"No," the remaining strand binding his frustrations weakened as Edward's voice cracked. This time when his fist rose, it came crashing down upon the smooth tabletop. The impact rocked the teacup, tipping it over the newsprint, "There is EVERYTHING wrong with 'that'!"

* * *

**Central City, Amestris. May 1916**

The back of Izumi's hand wiped the sweat from her forehead, sliding her chair to the right until she was protected beneath the patio canopy once again, "I hope they're keeping themselves out of trouble."

The uniformed officer laughed, "I'm sure Klose will keep Alphonse out of trouble, she came in to visit me last month and lived in the marketplace."

Izumi moved her empty glass aside before casting a relaxed expression upon the teenager's father, "She visits you regularly?"

Following a final swallow of his beverage, Klose's father shook his head, "No, this is only her second time into Central. I had a few days leave and thought I'd surprise her with tickets. I'm normally out East."

"You're stationed out in the Ishibal settlement?" Izumi's eyes slipped to the brick roadway, darting thru the crowds of people, wondering if she could spot the two children at the outskirts of the market.

"That's right. My town was under constant pressure from the government to join the military. I agreed under the condition that I worked with restorations. I was shocked when they granted my request."

Humming in response, Izumi's attention moved away from the bustling street and up into the clear, mid-day sky as she listened, "The government has been trying to change the face of the military, especially after the State Alchemist inquiry was held."

"Even with that," the man's voice developed into a cold, hard sound "there are still too much politics and rhetoric in the peace keeping measures… all sorts of nonsense," with a sigh, he pushed up from his seat, "but enough of that, I'll grab us something from the parlor to cool down with."

Izumi relaxed back in her chair, holding her glass up for Klose's father, "Thank you."

The noise from the streets and adjacent restaurant patrons slipped into faint background static. Her eyes held open lazily as Izumi cast her mind-wandering gaze in the pale blue skyline above the low roof of the eatery. Her arms folded and she let the tension slip from her shoulders for a few moments of relaxation.

"Excuse me?"

The gaze drifting above the rooftop swept around to the voice behind her. Izumi's eyes narrowed curiously at the slender, frail looking young woman who stood at her back.

"Yes?"

"I don't mean to intrude, but I saw two children with you and your companion earlier and I believe one of them may have dropped something."

Straightening her posture, Izumi turned in her chair to look up clearly at the fragile, yet finely dressed woman. Hand knit shawl hung around her neck, draped long over her shoulders, carefully concealing her entire torso.

"What did they loose?"

From beneath her body's decorative veil, an arm slowly emerged, placing the item in question upon the table. Carefully, the silver chain slipped from her fingers as she wrapped it around the circumference of the military pocket watch she'd presented to them.

"A young man dropped it; he had short, lighter brown hair, grey eyes, and there was a young lady with him."

Silent, listening to the woman's words, Izumi interrogated the military emblem etched into the silver pocket watch.

"That's not ours, unfortunately," her words exited her lips with blunt force.

"Really?" the woman stepped up to Izumi's side, her floor length dress sweeping the dust along with her, "the people around me said that he was the last one to handle it before it was lost. Could he have been holding it for someone else?"

"Unlikely," Izumi turned her gaze up with a powerful ferocity, holding the dark haired woman prisoner in her eyes as she stepped to the table's edge in her nearly floor-length dress.

"Such a shame, it looks so close to the real thing. It's a pity that someone has lost it."

Crossing her legs, Izumi began to counter the conversation, "The 'State Alchemist' title was removed from the military rankings after the government inquiry following the Ishibal fallout. That sort of thing is worthless now; I can't imagine anyone treasuring it. Thanks for your concern, though."

"Quite true, yes," the woman cast a sly, violet gaze back into the anger Izumi was projecting, "the patio is bustling with people during the afternoon, am I imposing too much if I ask to join your table?"

"You should expect to be refused."

An actress's poise carried on in her voice, a false hurt sliding from her tongue, "You'd refuse the Prime Minister's wife? That reflects even poorer upon you than your tone of voice with me has been."

Defiantly, Izumi reached out and swept the shimmering watch from the table, "I've never cared for the military, nor the government. I don't care what you call yourself now."

The watch cracked off the cement and clattered through the pebbles, stopping against the leg of another chair. From the moment it had been placed on the table, she'd known; they'd both known. For Dante, a wave of satisfaction moved through her knowing that her pupil had come to know enough to unravel her existence.

"You should not dismiss me so quickly."

Izumi's elbows came to rest on the table, placing her chin upon her laced fingers. She placed her fearless, challenging gaze on her former instructor, "Are you threatening me?"

"No," from beneath the secrecy of her shawl, Dante's single hand emerged again, pulling a vacant chair to the side of her challenger. Smoothing her dress, she sat down uninvited, "I'm offering words of advice."

As quickly as she'd sat down, Izumi stood up, sharply knocking her chair back from the table without another word.

"Edward Elric is inside the Gate, is he not?"

Izumi's jaw tightened, "You think I still answer to you?"

The statement was disregarded, and Dante was forced to work her plan around an uncooperative student, "That's the only conclusion I can draw seeing the younger brother as he is and the only reason I can think of for your trip to Dublith," as elegantly as her withering muscles would allow, she crossed her legs.

Izumi's arms folded, her back to her counterpart, "What we're doing now is none of your concern. You have no reason to get involved in our lives again."

"People who allow themselves the opportunity to be exploited should not shake their head when they find themselves at another's mercy."

Izumi pivoted quickly, casting her raging gaze down at the seated figure, "The only way for you to carry out your 'business' is to exploit civilization that way. The Elrics, the military, Lior, Ishibal…"

"Ishibal is forever beautiful," a sweeping grin laden with malice turned over to Izumi, "Ishibal continued to succeed where all others failed. I am only able to mold the future as I see it today because of their sacrifices; it's beautiful."

"In your eyes only."

"And I had beautiful, red eyes…"

Izumi's brow rose, perplexed by the statement, watching the quiet, confident words as they flowed from the woman's moving lips.

"The scarred man of Ishibal gave himself and the city of Lior to me in the most beautiful philosopher's stone I've had in ages. His brother was so close, but created something I could not use. Even more wonderful before that was a curious man who came to learn why the Ishiballan religion forbid alchemy, and was outcast for it. He carried the knowledge that would be passed on, graciously continuing my opera."

Her curiosity snared in the web of implications, Izumi listened as Dante's words flowed out of her mouth without hesitation. A script: decades in the making.

"I'm uncertain if he's bowed down to old age yet. As a young man, he and his lover developed and refined all sorts of methods for alchemy in secret; fueled by an ancient curiosity. It was in an old, rare text authored by a man who signed as Von Hohenheim that the couple discovered the proposal for Diana."

Lowering her defensive posture, the name of the Elric father coming from Dante was disturbing. The entire story was unsettling for Izumi. As her former teacher, Dante held the unique position of being someone Izumi would not forcefully lash out against, finding herself as the only woman who could leave this student puzzled and silent amidst confusion. The ancient woman relished that position, knowing that Izumi's 'superior knowledge' of alchemy was only the select information she'd fed her for so many years.

"Mind you, the research behind Diana's proposal was hundreds, if not thousands, of years older than my own existence; folklore from my youth which no longer exists," her head turned slightly, casting her gaze up to a former pupil, "but the first time I saw what was within the Gate and with each subsequent encounter, myself and that foolish man I once loved understood that within the Gate was the type of existence far beyond our understanding."

Listening carefully to each word spoken, absorbing the information, Izumi stared back into the malevolent storyteller's enthralling expression. After all the lies, the deception, the gross disregard for human life, the story conveyed to Izumi's ears could not be disregarded.

"Our first Philosopher's Stone allowed us to arrive at the Gate's door more often than any before us. It may have been an intolerable tease at an unreachable knowledge, but each time we stood at the doors we seemed to inch closer and closer to understanding the frightening image of mankind; almost able to taste the swell of knowledge there was to grasp. Many years later, that same husband of mine suggested: Could the horrors we see at the Gate's doors not be the knowledge and nightmares existing within the Gate, but be fragments of an existence elsewhere? Perhaps there was not only a type of hellish existence within the Gate, where the dead minds and souls of our loved ones reside, but one beyond it as well."

Izumi's raging tension drained away as the woman's voice continued to spiral through her ears. The daunting and unforeseen proposal pulled a nightmare of images to the forefront of her mind's eye. An assault, buried for years, now played again.

"Maybe what the Gate shows you is a warning," turning away, a sigh incurred before an old regret resurfaced, "though we could never find out if there was such an existence beyond the Gate and could only theorize how to confirm it."

Quickly digressing, Dante quickly cleared her lament, "The prospect of another type of mankind enthralled those two Ishiballans, and the couple explored the idea of Diana for several years. What they came to discover was that Diana existed with a condition. From that, the couple came to understand why their God forbid alchemy. Unfortunately, the Ishiballan way of life embedded such high moral standards into every man and woman raised under the church's blanket, that even a dissident couldn't find it within his heart to devastate society that way. Soon after they began searching for alternatives, the Ishibalan man discovered his wife had died while traveling through the south, her carriage crashed on the outskirts of Dublith. Days later the Ishiballan church leaned what they had been doing."

Her hand swept out from beneath her shawl, gripping the end of the table as she slowly rose to her feet, "There was only one survivor from the carriage crash that claimed his wife's life. A woman crawled out of the wreckage with barely a scratch. I'm sure you've met that sole survivour before."

A myriad of curses and accusations formed in Izumi's mouth as she clenched her jaw, her eyes slit like pins.

"So, the unanswerable question for you remains," the dark strands of hair fanned over her shoulder as the strong purple eyes drove into Izumi, "if you are seeking Edward Elric, are you looking for him in the nightmare of the Gate, or do you need to surpass your predecessors and find what exists beyond the Gate?"

Edward Elric, Alphonse's elder brother, was inside the Gate, thrown at mercy of a higher existence in order to reinvent his brother's existence. There had never been any doubt, nor questioning of the fact that once taken by the Gate you became its property as part of an exchange; equal or otherwise.

But this…

The words continued to flow without care as Dante gazed off into the crowds, "He did not die like Trisha Elric, whose body's existence came to an end allowing her mind and soul to exist within the Gate. His body was not taken like Alphonse Elric, and held at ransom by the Gate because of an incomplete alchemical equation. Edward Elric gave himself – his entire existence: mind, body and soul – to our beloved Gate to do with as it pleased; else the younger brother would not be standing as he is today. Those circumstances are different from the others. I would not expect to find him sitting by the doors when you finally arrive to take him back. The Gate had to put him somewhere to exist like that."

The noise of the bustling street rose into their conversation, yet the echo of the surrounding sounds was incomparable to Dante's blistering voice tearing through Izumi's head. The frustration and curiosity boiled inside of her, emotions reaffirmed themselves as her expression hardened. Her toe dug into the patio deck and Izumi spun around, holding her voice low, unable to sully the furious tone.

"I know that Edward sacrificed himself to bring Alphonse back, but that doesn't explain why you are telling me everything else! You don't care about that family."

With the shrug of her shoulders, and a sweet, malicious grin decorating her pale complexion, Dante's tone flooded with confidence, "I have my reasons, I'm sure you realize that. But, I don't have the patience to wait for you to discover things on your own. I'm disgusted enough by this world's ignorance, so I place higher expectations on my students, former or otherwise. The decades of failure you will endure is a far too painful thought, I do not want to sit back and wait to see if you come up with a solution. Diana can only be effective for so long."

"Is your riddle finished?" Izumi snarled, fighting with herself to not raise her voice and draw the attention of the people around her.

The riddle twisted at the deafening echo of gunshots ringing out within the streets. The hum of pedestrian traffic transformed into shrieks of men, women and children. Those voices were unable to drown out the rapid gunfire that went in chorus with the chaotic stampede of bodies.

Izumi stalled for only a moment, panic flooding into the streets and flushed into her veins, "… Al!"

"They're early…" Dante's uncompassionate eyes blinked wide.

Izumi whipped her snarling voice around, "EARLY?"

"By ten minutes or so…"

The automatic fire began drowning out so much that echoed: the shrieking voices, the shattering glass, and the thundering movements of people's feet. Their moment, their conversation, and their relationship threads were set ablaze as Izumi dismissed the existence of the malevolent puppeteer and refocused with every intention of charging through the terror flowing through the streets.

"Izumi!"

There was no other person who could command her with such ease; it was a string too hard to burn after so many years. Her fists clenched, Izumi turned back to the only person she'd ever allowed to hold authority over her.

"You don't have a firm grasp on what you're dealing with. You have only seen the Gate once. You have no documentation, no references, only your vague, personal experience. Have you deluded yourself to that boy's ambitions so badly that you can no longer remember the power the Gate held over you?" The storyteller's tone Dante had carried no longer existed and the woman's voice rose above the suffocating sound of fear swelling around them, "It seems Edward may have taken a page from his father's book without ever realizing it. So, if you want the only other man on this landscape who knows the contents of Hohenheim's Theory of Beyond the Gate, you should hurry east before I ensure that information flows from no mouth other than mine. Distrust my motives if you want, but I suggest you go, or risk every mistake man has made before you."

The ground beneath their feet heaved, the sound of a deafening explosion ripped through the air. Screams at Izumi's back magnified as a filthy fog of smoke thundered into the street. The gunfire faded, replaced by the roar of a flame that rose up, licking the delicious, blue sky before sinking into the haze.

"The hands of time are falling down upon Ishibal very quickly."

A dull vibration became a permanent sensation in the streets; the hands of time were crashing to the ground in a selected portion of Central City. Without a word in reply, Izumi vanished into the shrieking bedlam.

Pushing past toppled chairs in the smoggy patio eatery, Dante reached down and reclaimed the token watch. She slipped her way through the deserted mess, disinterested in the mayhem, pulling the ends of her shawl up to shield her face from the thickening smoke and dust.

She carved a path through the spiraling world that no other had taken, the violet in Dante's eyes shone clear in the sullied, murky air.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

This chapter was originally posted 10/07/05 at www . livejournal . com / users / yuuki / 94344 . html

You can keep the plot bunny alive by leaving a review :D

I'm laying the ground work for the next little while, this chapter is my springboard. Yes there are things you won't quite get, but they'll be explained!

You're told not to "assume" things because you can "make an ass out of you and me", right? Assumptions are going to start coming up on the FMA side about the process of crossing the Gate and they're not all going to be right. No one on the FMA side has a perfect understanding of how it works; there's going to be both right and wrong 'assumptions' made. The Gate's probably laughing at everyone in the process.

I touched upon a few things that I mentioned very early on in the story plotline (about Dante's position as the Prime Minister's wife), I suspect some of it has been forgotten because I've been so slow in putting out chapters since the spring time 6.6;. Sorry.


	20. Eyes on the World's Other Side

_Independency. _

__

_The lives on either side of the Gate are independent of each other._

_The Edward o_n this side of the Gate is dead.  
The body that matches my father's current body is also dead.

But we're from the other side of the Gate, and still alive.

The time lines of existence for those two identical people have nothing to do with each other.  
Your birth date and death date have no influence on one and other.

The determinants of existence for those two identical people have nothing to do with each other.  
Your parents, friends, and relatives are not the same at all.

Yet the world on this side of the Gate has something of everything from back home.  
But lacks every moment that shaped our lives.

* * *

**Chapter 71 - Eyes on the World's Other Side**

The click of the car door didn't overpower the natural afternoon sounds drifting beneath the trees that stretched high enough to scratch the crystal ceiling. Looking for suspicion among the serenity of the long, dusty back road, Mustang left his shoe print in the street as he stepped out of the car. With his hand to his forehead for protection from the blazing sun, Mustang slowly took in a panoramic impression of a small, aging, and forgotten community, untouched by modern delights. Beyond the wind's tease of the trees and the birds within their leaves, no sounds beyond the quartet's own could be heard.

"This is it?"

Roy glanced over the roof of the dirty-white, rusting car they had picked up in the town they'd placed the phone call to Havoc at.

"These were the directions Havoc gave you," Mustang replied to his supporting officer as she stepped out into the countryside air.

The last two passengers, Alphonse and Izumi, joined the congregation on the side of the gravel road, taking in the bright, mid-day wilderness with the same perplexed reactions that the two Amestris officers carried.

"It's nice," Al shut his door, stepping around the car, deliberately scraping his feet through the soft, top layer of dust on the dirt road, feeling the heat of the midday air wrap around his body like a blanket and soak into his skin.

Mustang moved away from the swell of confusion that stood around the car, curiously continuing on foot along the path they'd traveled.

Rusted and ajar from their upright perch, old tin mailboxes sat precariously upon wooden pegs planted into the soil; meters upon meters of distance between each one as they faded off into the distance. With the graces of Mother Nature shielding and separating each spacious plot of land, grown over tire and footpaths served as walkways to the front of each house they had passed and each one to come.

The incursion of Izumi's voice interrupted Mustang's train of thought, and he looked back at the adults trailing lengths behind him. His brow rose, noting the absence of Alphonse; Roy turned, following the direction of the women's gazes towards a footpath that lead beyond the greenery encompassing the house it protected.

"Major."

Both women turned their attention over to Mustang as he motioned for Riza to follow Alphonse on his curiosity trek.

Stepping free of the surrounding hedge, curiously defying Izumi's caution about wandering away, Alphonse waded through the knee deep grass. This little world, and the worlds next to it, hadn't been cared for in years. Stepping up to the side of a house that was once white, the rain had eroded away much of the colour, bled a dirty brown into much of the siding and provided a place for mold, mildew and weed vines to grow uncontested.

"Alphonse?"

The young Elric looked over to Major Hawkeye as she slipped into the growth surrounding the house.

"Don't wander too far; we don't know what we're looking for out here."

"Alright," Alphonse spoke as he swept away the layers of dust on a wooden window ledge away, rising high on his toes to peer into the sunlit room of the house. Devoid of curtains, property and life, his eyes traced through the room, wondering what sort of existence had been there before.

"No one's been here in a long time," his voice was wistful, lost in the daydream of a peaceful, rural world he could liken to Rizembool's.

"A very long time," Riza pushed aside the fallen limbs of trees, long since collapsed beneath rain, wind and snow.

Stepping away from the side of the house, Al slowly made his way around it. Perched at the building's side, he looked out into the weed and wild flower filled clearing that had once been the backyard of the family that had called this place home. Wading into the tall reaches of greenery, Alphonse came to a stop; squinting beyond the growth of tree's and shrubs at the yard's end.

"… Major…"

Her voice lifted, "Riza is fine Alphonse, I've told you that."

"… There's a lake out back."

"Pardon?" Riza's tone dropped, caught unprepared by the statement.

"No really, come see!"

Pushing past the obstacles on the opposite side of the house, her concerns heightened as she realized that Alphonse had vanished from the yard and into the trees beyond it. Sweeping her way through the overgrowth, Riza made her way into the obstacle course she had to manage within the trees. Fighting her way through the shrubs and fallen growth, she made a frustrating exit into the clearing beyond the trees. Stopping in mid stride her eyes shot about carefully as she scoured the stretch of lakeside before her. Finally her attention fell over Alphonse's stout figure dancing about on one foot in the thin strip of lakeside sand while he tried to pull off a shoe.

The wilderness shrouded and protected a lake as clear as the sky above it in a spot best described as 'the middle of nowhere'. Riza's hand slipped to her side as she moved further away from the wilderness' edge, the clay ground beneath her feet felt like cement as she stepped closer to the point where the hard bed dipped beneath the white, sandy lakeside. The clear glass of the lake's surface reflected a clear mirror image of the horizon at the opposite end. Accompanying the grime and mold covered boats beached on dry land, a few rickety piers jetted out into the image drawn atop the water.

Sliding the beige jacket from her shoulders, Riza turned to see Alphonse, who had managed to take off his shoes and was now holding them by the laces, wander a solitary path along the water's edge. In unison, the attention of the two lakeside explorers was suddenly grabbed; the displacement of the image upon the water's surface was hard not to miss. A distortion, much larger than any bird or fish could have caused, smeared the natural picture that had caught their eye moments earlier. That was all that was needed for Alphonse to burst forward and sprint towards the closest dock.

"Alphonse, stop!" Riza followed swiftly, her voice ringing with subtle frustration towards the boy's constant lack of caution.

Alphonse's bare feet dug the first deep crevices to be placed in the sand bed in years as he ran. The alarm present in Riza was never a fleeting thought in Al's thoughts. As the young Elric saw it, what sort of danger did someone floundering about in the water pose to him? His feet created a dull, hollow echo off the wooden pier boards, the bottoms of his feet leaving behind the sand that stuck to him. He ran until he could go no farther, stopping on the final plank, his toes hooking around the edge of the final board.

The disruption of the water's shine stopped as Alphonse looked down.

"Alphonse!" Riza's voice hollered, standing annoyed at the ground-based boards of the pier. The boy's head shot around finally to her call.

"Al!" the voice squealed from the water's surface, a soaking hand slapping onto the pier.

Riza's brow rose at the voice and Al turned back around. Kneeling down, Alphonse helped a familiar face pull herself out of the water, curiously noting the red tinge of a sunburn that had manifested itself in her face and over her shoulders.

Rising to her feet at the tip of the pier, a soggy, white and pink dress left a hefty puddle upon the wooden boards as the water disturbance, known to Alphonse as Brigitte, shook her hair out and burst into unintelligible monologue.

Alphonse's confusion swirled around; the foreign tongue was more alien than it had ever sounded before, his blank expression could not be overcome by the delight in his companions voice. Brigitte's voice finally faded, matching his lost gaze with her own sudden perplexed look. Sweeping his hand up through his light, golden brown hair, Alphonse turned his attention to Major Hawkeye, who was standing only steps away.

The uncertainty the young Elric projected only tightened the lines developing on Riza's forehead. Her right hand came down upon her hip; a hair's length away from the handle of her pistol. With her hand precariously perched, Riza stiffened her expression as Alphonse's gaze widened in obvious surprise. The Major cautiously flickered her eyes over her shoulder towards the shore.

"Major…?"

The tightness vanished at not only the recognition of a voice, but a face, "Lieutenant… Ross?"

Adjusting her white shirt beneath the burning sun, Maria Ross stood barefoot in the sand at the beginning of her pier; her jeans rolled to her knees, looking back at Hawkeye and Alphonse with much less confusion than what surrounded the three standing over the water's surface.

"I was expecting you to be coming in the front door."

Slowly squaring up, lagging in her movements as her thoughts tried to put a puzzle together, Riza's hand slid back to her hip, "...Is that so?"

* * *

Her mitten-covered hands gave a firm yank on the wool hat until it covered the top of her ears. Sinking down into the confines of her coat, Winry folded her arms tight across her chest and dawned a sour, disapproving look, "Why's it so cold out here!"

"The wind is blowing in off the river," Hohenheim snapped the jacket collar up around his own neck, his attention focusing on the landscape slowly drawing closer to the boat's uneasy approach.

"October's not supposed to be this cold," Winry whined, her voice as bitter as the chill that bit her. Glancing over the ship's side, she searched for what held the man's attention, "the train took us through snow already. Snow! In October!"

"The snowfall comes a little ahead of schedule sometimes," the old father mused, "and it's the end of October, this isn't uncommon in some places."

Her scowl disapproving of all the things she could not control, Winry turned her attention back to the people mulling about on the deck of the boat challenging a harsh sea, "Half these people are sea sick… where's Ed?"

Turning from the vantage point, Hohenheim took a quick scan of the crowd, "I haven't seen him in a while; he might have gone below deck."

Winry slapped her glove-covered hands on her cheeks, burnt red with chill, and promptly stood up, "I'll go find him."

"That's fine, stay back from the edge of the boat, if the boat beings rocking without warning you don't want to go overboard," Hohenheim smirked, hoping that the warning would convince her to seek warmer shelter, rather than bitterly engage the chill.

Without a response to the suggestion Hohenheim gave, Winry snatched up the black case at her feet and stomped away. Her arms still folded to seal her warmth, Winry slipped her way around the two dozen or so people who'd also ventured out into the cold. It wasn't as though you could see much; the thick, grey cloud hung low above the boat, obscuring the land they'd left and disallowing a view of the place they approached. The people taking in the damp, foggy view seemed unaffected by the elements;, she couldn't understand how that could be. People were allowing their ears and fingers to be exposed, if they didn't cover them up soon they'd surely freeze and fall off!

On a bench several feet back from the boat's side guard railing, a solitary figure sat, attention thrown overboard into the bitter scenery with nothing more than a jacket and scarf for protection.

"Ed?" Winry called for his attention and did not receive it.

His back was to her and the blond ponytail whipped around his head carelessly in the harsh wind. He didn't face forwards to the approaching British landscape, nor did he cast his gaze back to see if anything remained of the mainland; Ed merely cast his eyes out into the dark, grey waters, covered by the smoky ends of the cloud they sailed through.

Winry's expression twisted the longer Ed didn't reply, watching him slouch forwards and give no care for how his crutch lay dumped on the ship's deck next to him. He better not treat her leg the same way, since she was almost finished with it. With a fist clenched in one mitten, and the other clenched around the handle of her long, black case housing the appendage she'd sworn at dozens of times out of frustration, Winry stomped over to the unresponsive figure.

"Wake up, Ed!" her hand slapped down on his shoulder.

Winry withdrew her grip on his shoulder nearly as quickly as the startled gasp came from Ed's mouth.

"Sorry," her apology came as Edward's melancholy gaze turned over his shoulder to her. He shook his head and returned to his silent vigil into the disrupted waters.

Rubbing her chilled hands together, Winry stepped around the bench and interrupted his solitude. Defying the scowl on his face, she redid the white scarf wrapped around his neck, "Your ears are red, where's your hat?"

"In my pocket."

Practically uncontested, Winry fished it out of his jacket and swiftly pulled the wool toque down over his head. She felt like a mother fighting with her stubborn child, "What was it doing in your pocket?"

Another lifeless response emerged, sounding just as desolate as the first, "I couldn't get it back on."

The response put a pause in Winry's actions, momentarily hesitant before resuming her banter to preserve as much normalcy in her world as possible, "Why'd you take it off?"

"It was itchy."

Sighing, Winry bit down on the tips of her mittens and pulled her hands free. Kneeling down at his feet, she sat up high and stuck her warm fingertips on his cheeks, her thumbs pushing into the darkened skin beneath his eyes. Now she had his attention.

"What are you doing?" Ed tone was far too harsh, wrinkling his face as he tried to lean away.

Winry again challenged his aggression with a sharp hiss to her much quieter voice, "You look like you haven't slept in days. Your dad keeps talking about all these people we're going to meet and places we can go, but you look like you crawled out of a graveyard. What do you suppose they're going to think when they see you?"

Scowling, Ed jerked his head away from her touch, "I don't care what they think."

"You should," with a frown, Winry moved from her crouch and sat down next to him on the bench, "maybe we could go down below and get out of the weather before your face turns any redder, it looks like you're going to sun burn in the cold."

"It's fine," Ed sighed, tugging on the fuzzy hat covering his hair, "I got used to this a while back. This'll be my sixth winter in this place; it's not so bad anymore."

Winry took his hand away from playing with the hat; her stomach twisted when she felt it, since the hand felt as cold as his automail hand. If she hadn't looked down to reassure herself that Ed's hand was flesh and blood, she wondered if she would have been able to tell the difference, "Where's your mitt?"

"Who knows," it was the first time Ed registered the rising tone Winry had begun to use, picking up the frustration thrown towards him like the waves crashing against the boat, "I put it down somewhere for a few minutes and when I came back it was gone. I have no idea where it went."

Ed wondered if it was a good thing that she didn't respond; he didn't feel like sparing with her over a mitten, hell, he didn't even feel like holding the conversation she was forcing him into. There was something about permitting his mind to drift away in the sea that allowed him to free himself from the confines of the world. The air's moist chill didn't bother him, since it felt like a cold patch touching each of his sore muscles; he could tolerate the frigidness in exchange for the freedom from the empty daydream this world was. It was a blissful, numbing sensation.

"You should be more careful."

Lifting himself from the drifting state of mind he'd fallen into, Ed cast his gaze down to the bleach-white left hand resting limp in Winry's lap. Her bare left hand cradled it while the right hand, sheltered by her fuzzy, brown mitten, moved swiftly to try and return warmth to his palm as it bled a raging chill into her finger tips.

The curtain of Ed's hair shielded the distraught reaction that came into his eyes. Silent for far too long, he turned away, gazing towards the land he knew they were approaching but could not see through the mist, "Maybe we should go inside…"

Because he still couldn't feel the warm touch trying to restore feeling in his hand.

* * *

"Dammit, why didn't anyone tell me that the residential side of Central is so…" resting upon a wooden, street-side bench, Russell's elbow came down on his knees and his head was quick to follow into his hand, "confusing."

"Mrs. Curtis gave you the address, didn't she?" sitting up, Fletcher reached across his brother's lap, trying to get a hold of the shoulder bag of supplies the pair had taken with them, "maybe we can ask for directions?"

Shoo'ing his brother away, Russell's free hand gripped the bag firmly, pulling the shoulder strap across his chest, "Yeah she did, but let's leave it in there so we don't lose it. The envelope and the address are in the same spot."

"Alright," slouching back in the bench, Fletcher's hand flopped into his lap, eyeing the mid-day street without any life on it, "maybe we're in the wrong end of town?"

Russell's first thought echoed in his mind and blew out of his mouth, "We better not be, I don't want to walk across this city any more," yet his second thought came across with far more care, dulling the frustration in his voice, "We just need to pick up a map of the city and we'll be fine. Don't worry."

The boys rose to their feet, and with a hint of eager delight, Fletcher quickly followed his brother's signal to follow in his steps. There was a corner store at the end of the block; surely they could find directions there.

Central City's residential district seemed different than the rest of the city. In a place bustling with activity, business, politics, economics, military functions, there was the protected world within the world where everyone retired to from their hectic days. Whereas the rural towns and smaller cities had their residential districts, the atmosphere made Central's housing district feel more like a sanctuary. The blazing summer's heat radiated off the black roadway and pulled a vibrant green from the lush front lawns. Protection from the elements existed at the side of the road; thick, aging tree's lined the sidewalk, shielding those who wandering through the peace. Occasionally, a scalding breath of sunlight escaped through the canopy of leaves.

"Brother…?"

Russell's eyebrow rose at the tentative call of his name.

"Where do you think they ended up going to? Alphonse and Mrs. Curtis didn't seem to know too many details when they said they were going with the officers."

The elder Tlingum's hands slipped into his pockets while the hard soles of his shoes scraped along a cement sidewalk scarcely coated with pebbles, "I have no idea where they're headed, and I think that Mustang took too much pleasure in telling me that it was none of my business. But, we should worry about getting home," taking a hand out from his pockets, Russell patted the bag on his hip, "this is just a favour for Mrs. Curtis."

Russell leaned into the glass window of the shop door with his shoulder and found himself instantly overwhelmed by the smell of fresh baked bread as the door chimes rang overhead.

"Good afternoon boys," the voice of an elder shopkeeper called out as the door accidentally slammed shut behind them, causing the boys to jump.

Quickly gathering himself, Fletcher perked at the delightful call, "Good afternoon, Sir!"

"G'afternoon, Sir," Russell gave a slight wave of his hand and a cocky turn of his smile in response to the greeting.

"Sorry about the door, it's a bit out of sorts. But, if you need help finding anything, just let me know."

Spinning on his heels, Fletcher flashed his big grin for the clerk, "Actually, would you—"

"It's alright, Fletcher," Russell grabbed his younger brother by the overall strap and pulled him along the racks lined up beneath the window, finally calling out, "thank you, Sir!"

"Brother…" the younger sibling whined in protest, straightening his clothes, "why don't we just ask him if this street is around here?"

The smirk ever-present, Russell waved his hand in dismissal, "You weren't listening, I said all I need…" beside the newspaper and magazine racks, the two boys stopped and the elder brother's finger skimmed over a section of folded maps, "is a residential map."

"But if the man knows, then don't waste the money!"

Russell's hand came down upon his younger sibling's scruffy hair and messed it up even more, "We won't trouble the man, don't worry," he quickly snatched up what he'd been searching for from the rack, "I have everything under control, have faith in your big brother."

Fletcher's face twisted with doubt, looking disapprovingly at him as he sauntered back to the counter, "Your head is getting bigger again…"

"What?" Russell blinked back over his shoulder.

"Nothing," the younger sibling finally trotted after the other, standing silent by his elder brother's side as the young man carried on some variety of small talk that did not peak his interest. Finally paying for their new map, Russell tugged on his brother's overalls once more and the little boy meandered after his brother, holding onto the door handle of the shop long enough that it didn't slam behind them.

By the time Fletcher looked up at his brother again, the young man had the map unfolded in front of his face and all the younger sibling could do was frown.

"Brother…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know what street we're on?"

Scowling, Russell lowered the map from his line of sight and looked up at the intersection signs, "Yep."

"Do you know where that is on the map?"

"Of course I do!"

The younger brother's hands came down on his sides, "Can you show me?"

Narrowing his eyes and wrinkling his nose, Russell stared back down at his little brother, "You think I don't know where we are…"

All Russell received for a response this time was the innocent gaze of a suddenly sweet looking sibling.

"Fine. I'll show you where we are!" snapping the map wide in front of his face, Russell found himself quickly scouring the mess of streets and avenues scattered over the map. His interrogation of the lines ceased when he heard the snap on his shoulder bag release and Russell quickly looked down to see his conniving little brother take the envelope from his pouch.

"Fletcher!"

"Be right back!" and the boy moved through the store's door before his brother could grab hold of him. Quickly following, Russell tried to catch Fletcher before he vanished behind the door, only to recall the broken hydraulics on the shop entrance as he walked into a closed door that had slammed in his face.

Taking a sharp, deep breath, Russell threw the door open again to see his little brother standing upon his tip toes at the shop counter. The shopkeeper looked up from Fletcher for a moment to the annoyed expression the elder brother wore before the other sibling's voice asked for his attention once more.

"We're looking for that address and we don't know how to get there."

Pushing the bridge of his glasses against his nose, the elder clerk eyed it, "… Isn't this Mrs. Hughes and little Elysia's place? That's not too far from here at all."

Russell's sigh of surrender to his little brother prevented Fletcher from ever considering any sort of 'I told you so' response.

Taking the pen out from behind his ear, the clerk gave Russell a curious look as he placed it down upon the counter, "You know, Mrs. Hughes and her daughter came in here to pick up milk this morning and I don't recall her mentioning that she was expecting visitors."

"Yeah…" Russell strummed his fingers on the counter, "she doesn't know we're coming."

"It's a surprise," Fletcher piped as he tucked the address Izumi had given them into the same sacred spot in his overalls that another important document had once been hidden.

* * *

"Hohenheim!"

Standing amidst the activity at the landing docks, the generally straight posture Ed had maintained broke down at the echo of the voice, "You've got to be kidding…"

"My Lord, Hohenheim, do you look fit as ever!"

"Charles! You shouldn't have stuck around," Hohenheim's voice scolded playfully.

"We're four hours late…" Ed's expression fell flat as he rolled his eyes away, "and he's still here?"

Amidst the chaos of reunions and disorganized redistribution of luggage, the Elric and Rockbell contingent was lucky enough to be among the first to have their baggage returned to them. Such a prize meant they were also among the first to claim the warmest location along the riverside, sheltered from the tiring wind at the side of a building. There was no point going inside, it was far too crowded and their baggage would be far too cumbersome to deal with in a cramped, densely populated area.

However, they had only been on dry land no more than 20 minutes before the all too familiar voice had rang out.

Shifting her eyes between the laughing reunion and Edward's disgusted expression, Winry found herself poking Ed's shoulder, "Who's that?"

"The guy we're staying with," he snorted out, "friend of my dad's."

Put off by the lack of care in his voice, Winry adjusted her jacket as she looked back to a far more pleasant pair of acquaintances, "Everyone is a friend of your dad's and no one's a friend of you."

The comment didn't seem to faze Ed who continued looking off into the crowds of people mulling around them.

"Edward!"

That call, however, did faze him and Edward's hand twitched around the bar of his crutch. Letting the annoyance slide from his expression, Ed turned towards the man with the blankest expression he could conjure up.

"My goodness, you are a ray of sunshine in our lives, aren't you?" the man deliberately toyed with Ed, two strong hands landing on what remained of Ed's shoulders, "Hohenheim, your son has lost so much of that childish look he use to have about him. He's growing up with a strong and angry jaw line."

"I know," Hohenheim gave a crooked smirk.

Patting his hands firmly over Ed's stiff shoulders, Charles Wilson took a step back from him, "Have you forgotten your manners or has English become too much of a foreign language for you?"

"You want me to say hello?" Ed muttered flatly, rolling his eyes, "'long time no see'… or something?"

"Something like that would be quite fitting, actually."

"Hello Doctor Wilson," he spoke even stiffer than how he'd composed his previous statement, "long time, no see."

Hohenheim's scolding tone lashed out, "Edward Elric…"

"What?" His eyes narrowed fiercely, his voice snapping the reaction onto his father for the use of his name in such a way.

"Ed!" Winry's hand ended the escapade before it developed further; slapping him across the back of his head and defiantly challenging his ferocity, "grow up!"

Defying the rising frustration swelling around Ed as he shot a glare back at Winry, Charles gave a few strong taps of his finger beneath Ed's chin before stepping back with a grin, "I hope you didn't sound so pained when you were re-acquainted with the lovely young lady next to you."

Ed scoffed, wiggling his jaw, "Hardly."

Winry giggled at the man's provocation of Edward as Mr. Wilson placed himself in front of her, "I believe Hohenheim told me your name was Wendy Rockbell."

She blinked, the grin falling away as he addressed her, "No, it's Winry."

"Winry?" Dr. Wilson raised an eyebrow, a mused grin crossing his face, "That's a very unique name."

Pausing, Winry looked up at him through narrowed, curious eyes; 'Wendy' was a far weirder name than hers, "It's Norwegian."

Ed's hand slapped over his face and Hohenheim's stroked his beard as Winry glared over to the two as they seemed to twitch in place. Both men wished the time between Winry's sarcastic quip and Mr. Wilson's eventual reply hadn't lasted so long.

"Well," his response was choked out through a grin, "it's a fine name none the less."

"It's mid-afternoon Charles, and I don't think anyone's had lunch yet," deciding formalities were finished and the topic needed a change, Hohenheim lead the conversation in a new direction, "shall we head out before clogging up your flat?"

Dr. Wilson was more than eager to accept the idea, "Sounds splendid. With that kind of a delay you must be hungry."

Bending down to pick up the luggage at her feet, Winry blinked as the doctor snatched her bags from her finger tips. The only bag he could not take from her grasp was the case that proudly housed Edward's replacement leg, giving a silent refusal by holding the case behind her back as the men continued their conversation. She took a glance over to Ed before following the men street side in search of a ride; again, the look in his eyes clearly said that Edward had drifted years away from where he stood. With a tug on his sleeve, he returned to the world he existed in and slowly followed alongside Winry.

"We should only have something light though," Hohenheim nodded in thought as his feet brushed over the street beneath his feet, suddenly reminded of a conversation he'd carried on days ago "I spoke with Thomas before leaving Brussels-"

Charles lit up at the mention of the Hyland family, "Oh that's right, he mentioned that!"

"…I told them I expected to be in on Thursday and suggested we meet before dinner at five. It's almost three now."

Glancing back, Dr. Wilson cast a cautious eye upon Edward, watching for a reaction in his deadened expression, "I spoke with Thomas earlier today; he suggested that everyone rendezvous near the bridge in the park near their old house. You can see the palace in the distance from a few spots, Winry might be interested in seeing it."

"She might be interested," Hohenheim cast his attention over his shoulder. The demeanor he kept up with his companion fell away as he watched the stragglers make their way behind them. The father finally stopped to allow the trailers a chance to catch up.

"Apparently, Margaret has been going on and on about Edward, and it's all Thomas' fault too," Dr. Wilson made sure that he had Hohenheim's full attention before continuing, "The pretty thing can't wait to meet him," Charles' grin grew delightfully crooked at the thought, hoping to return to the far more pleasant feeling that had been around his friend moments ago, "your boy will grin from ear to ear, she's a beautiful charm."

"I bet she's growing up to look like her mother" Hohenheim pushed a grin into his cheeks.

A laugh accompanied Charles' nod, "She has her father's personality and her mother's eyes."

* * *

Almost an hour had passed since four new bodies had stepped into the Ross cabin.

Nearly half an hour had passed since their first meal all day had finished.

Fifteen minutes had passed since the contents of Brigitte's wallet had been handed to Mustang.

Ten ticks of the minute hand had passed since Maria had taken them into her father's study.

An old, aging study was part of the back corner of the Ross cabin and the sunlight burned into it through the shield of closed drapes. Pushed against the wall, a writing desk showed deteriorating signs of its age as the wood rotted away. The dip calligraphy pen sat in a silver holder at the side of the desk, precariously challenging gravity, supported by the strength of dried black ink that glued it in place.

But that table wasn't to be touched; unfolded in the center of the room was an old card table, decorated with irremovable crayon and finger paint. By Maria's hand, fifteen years worth of dust-sealant on the table's surface had finally been swept aside.

Seven minutes had passed since Maria distributed three pictures of the Thule hall that Havoc had been able to develop from the nearly ruined roll of film in Brigitte's camera.

Once, children had hovered over this table, enthralled by the mystery of a story etched into the pages of a bound novel. The decorative colours upon the table may have dulled over time, but the scratched surface once again held a riveting mystery.

A minute, give or take a boisterous tick from the unstoppable seconds hand, had passed since Alphonse stood amongst four other adults and a mystery child looking into eyes from another side of the world.

Frozen in another time.

An existence portrayed in monotone; a life without colour.

It left silence so thick you could grasp it.

The stern, steadfast expression the two most senior officers had carried themselves with had cracked. Now they stood looking down upon an image which threw reasonable thought around the room in a tantrum. Maria took in a startled breath as Alphonse stirred the unease. She, as did the others, watched as the young Elric dashed out of the room without a word. Turning out the doorway, the boy's bare feet slipped on the wooden floor planks, and though he floundered, he refused to drop a knee to the ground.

There was an explosion to suppress and his hands clenched so tight at his sides his knuckles had turned white. Yet, delicately slipped between those fingers, the white back of a photograph flashed back at those watching his departure.

The sound of his feet pounding through the cabin echoed for all to hear. The sudden frustrated scream Alphonse let out when he couldn't find what he'd rushed to find resonated even louder.

Izumi stepped away from the group, taking a burden of knowledge with her.

Al's hands shook. He couldn't pick which emotion was causing it; perhaps it was the combination of them all. He fought with the lock on the patio door until it clicked and the latch released. Not wasting a moment, the door was thrown open and Alphonse tore out the door, ignoring the sting of boiling ground beneath his feet.

"Brigitte!"

He'd moved so fast he suddenly found himself in the sand; Alphonse spun his feet deep into the fine white grains, squinting tightly as he tried to see through the sun's hot white noise. Looking back into the towering green life that surrounded the houses, his eyes widened as a pair of white legs dropped from one of the lower branches. No attention was given to Brigitte's annoyed reaction for disturbing her from the coolest place in the area. Her voice was background noise in Al's ears, as was the sound of his breathing and racing of his heart.

The moment her feet touched the ground, the girl nearly jumped back in surprise at the force Alphonse approached her with, stiffening in concern as he grabbed her arm. Wide eyed, without a word in her vocabulary she could use to question him, Brigitte watched as Alphonse hunched over, his head bowed as he tried to slow the race in his head and gather his breath.

"You…"

The displaced girl's brow rose; waiting for a question she was unsure she could answer. Her attention momentarily flickered over to the patio door as Izumi's slippers touched down against the ground.

Again Alphonse startled her, grabbing and opening her hand. Into her palm Alphonse placed the image he'd take away from the sights of the others.

"You need to tell me if you know who that is."

A blank expression was all Brigitte could respond with, looking back in confusion at an image she'd taken months ago. Carefully taking the image in both hands at its corners, Brigitte's attention slid back and forth between the desperation in Alphonse's eyes and the quiet approach of Izumi.

"Ms. Ross said that these are yours. The officers in Central think that your camera took this picture…"

Brigitte pulled away from Alphonse, slipping the white border of the picture carefully into her fingertips as to not touch the image surface. Al's behaviour was startling and she could not understand where his panic came from. She wondered if he was pale from the reflection of the sun, or if he was honestly that out of sorts. Again she looked over to Izumi who'd stopped before getting to them; the alchemy teacher's left hand cupped the elbow of the right hand covering her mouth. The look in her eyes made the young adolescent want to run into the sanctuary of the surrounding bush. Izumi's eyes dissected her; the look was invasive, intrusive and frightened her without an understood cause. Standing back at the door, the officers now looked on; searching with their own eyes and ears for the same things that Izumi wanted to know.

"Brigitte…"

Again she looked back at Alphonse; she gave preference to his rising tone over the crushing look placed upon her by the others.

"Please," Al's hands brushed over his face and swept through his hair as he straightened his posture, "you need to find some way to tell me if you know who that is."

"Alphonse," Izumi's quiet voice interrupted, "she doesn't understand what—"

The sudden wide, grey eyes Alphonse dawned pushed his sensei back into silence. At his chest, Alphonse gripped at his shirt. Jaw tightening, he stripped the panic from his voice and addressed Brigitte once again, "I told you my name was Alphonse. Alphonse Elric."

"Oh?" Brigitte's concern dropped as quickly as Al's had. The light of realization that fuelled Alphonse was not the same one that suddenly made the lost child's heart race. With the flick of her wrist she slipped the picture between her index and middle fingers and held it between them.

"_Your last name is_ Elric? _This is_ Edward Elric."

There had never been a hint of doubt in his mind that the foolish look of surprise in that black and white image belonged to his brother. The enunciation of his brother's name by a wayward girl's voice was nearly deafening. The sudden release of tension nearly overwhelmed Alphonse; it was refreshing, relieving and utterly weightless. All the air he gasped for earlier flooded into his chest with ease. The dizzying feeling was astoundingly delightful.

"_Are you related to him?_"

Brigitte blinked as Izumi delicately took the image from the girl's grasp, "Edward Elric…"

"_Do you know him? Can you call him?_" she tilted her head up to try and catch the distant gaze in Izumi's eyes. Every syllable she spoke brought more unease to the sound of her voice, "_Does he know I'm here? Can you tell him to call my Mother?_"

Lurking back at the sidelines, watching the scene unfold, the three officers gave a subtle exchange of glances. Mustang was the first to move from their initial stances, adjusting his eye patch before releasing a slow exhale. Finally, his arms folded firmly across his chest and a striking look of discontentment crossed over his face.

Slowly shifting away from the wall, Hawkeye's fingertips rested gently on her chin as she looked on in thought, "He looks so much older in that picture…"

Mustang didn't glance over to his right hand officer, opting for the continual grind of his jaw as he weighed the information in his head, "That picture can't be more than 6 months old…"

Maria leaned against the doorframe, her gaze soft as she looked to her superiors, "But he looked like..."

"I know what it looks like, Lieutenant," Roy's focus fell over Brigitte as the girl waded through an unanswerable mess of confusion, "and I have no doubt that's why that child is here with us and not in Central."

Interrupting the train of thought was a voice, though it was not so much what was said, but the manner in which it was spoken. The exuberance, excitement, relief, and delight poured out through the restraints that tried to maintain the maturity of those surrounding him.

"Sensei, my brother's alive somewhere!"

Wherever that somewhere was seemed irrelevant. Firmly in his hand, Alphonse held the picture; the visual representation of everything he wanted to have back.

There had never been any mention of that doubt before; the question of the elder Elric's existence was nonnegotiable in Alphonse's mind: somehow, somewhere, existing within the Gate was Edward Elric. If Alphonse's body had existed that way for five years, no doubt his brother's could find a spot within the Gate. But this was different; this showed not only existence, but hints of life. Parts of the 'some'-such questions no longer lingered with a multitude of possibilities.

'Why' suddenly became an ugly foe.

Izumi watched as the young Elric held his prize proudly, beaming with the radiance of the sun he now challenged. The flood sweeping around him couldn't help but make the teacher laugh. She stood along side the most foolish of pupils.

'Why' would be a demon they could face another day.

* * *

It was an odd expression that crossed Ed's face and, for the life of her, Winry couldn't figure out what he was giving such an inquisitive inspection of. They'd been early, because Hohenheim didn't want them to be late, and found themselves wandering the park for twenty minutes. Finally, Ed gave up on what he called 'pointless wandering' and sat down upon a wooden bench at the side of a path. Thankfully, the wind had died down, though it swirled into their faces every so often to remind them that shades of winter had blown in with the morning's storm. Despite the much calmer afternoon, the pair had barely found a soul in the vicinity and Winry soon proclaimed the elements had scared away all the 'sane people'.

And now, she found herself shifting on the park bench, watching as Ed's hand hovered over the handle of his crutch. There were only trees for him to see; trees engulfed at their bases by the entire brown fullness that had once hung dead on the branches. Both agreed it must have been a lovely fall scenery days before the wind had charged in and pushed autumn closer to winter.

"Ed?"

"Oh…" he sat back, slapping his hand down onto his thigh.

Winry's eyes darted around to see if she'd missed something, "Um, Ed?"

"Hm?" a childish look of curiosity greeted Winry as he turned to face her, leaving her far too perplexed to ask too much.

"… What are you looking at?"

"Oh," he turned away, pointing a bare finger out towards the barren skeletons of the trees that continued to be accosted by an intermittent wind, "the groundskeepers cut off the lower branches on those trees. I wasn't sure if we were in the right spot, but I guess they were trimmed."

There was a strange sound to his voice; it was so lost in thought that he sounded aloof. Winry definitely approved of this detached sense of nostalgia, even if exhaustion continually radiated off of him. She'd picked up his gaze dancing through the city as they made their way around in the afternoon; where ever his mind wandered that afternoon managed to drown out the aggression that Dr. Wilson had been toying with when they arrived in England.

"Really?" Winry rubbed her mittens together hoping for some extra warmth to her fingertips, "Say, we're supposed to meet that family for dinner but the sun's setting and it's cold. Shouldn't we go find your dad and find out what's going on?"

Without an initial answer, Ed cast his gaze over his shoulder, looking back down the path from which they'd walked before. Winry's attention rested upon Ed as he came to face forward once more, "Nope, here's fine."

Winry ruffled up beneath her jacket, "Ed, quit being such a s-"

"Uncle Edderd!"

"Eh?" Winry's face blanked, only catching the flash of an impish, dusty, light blue coat flop over the bench on the other side of Ed. Two stubby legs dangled out from the jacket, decorated with tiny black boots and white stockings.

"Edderd?" attempting to peer around Ed to catch a glimpse of something more, Winry couldn't help but giggle at the squeaking voice.

Hunching over, Ed dipped and turned his head to catch a better glimpse of the companion that was suddenly at his side. With the same alienated tone he'd been using with Winry, Ed gave an awkward smirk for her, "And I bet you're Margaret?"

"Yes!" a bundled child glowed back up at him; stringy, brown hair leaked out from beneath her hat and framed a pudgy, rosy face. A childish lisp came from her lips as the chirpy two-year-old plunked herself squarely on the bench, "Daddy says you are Uncle Edderd."

Winry lifted her head higher, watching Edward sweep his left hand beneath the child's knee length jacket and pull her onto the bench.

"You're not a monkey Margaret, sit properly like a young lady."

"Mummy says so too!"

It was most likely the most un-Edward like thing he could have said and the most outrageous sign of the type of corruption society had spent 5 years pounding him with. Winry found it unsettling and somehow amusing to hear him lecture a child; the unease created by his voice was pushed aside as Winry mused over the child's term.

"You're her 'Uncle Edderd'?" she teased, giving his jacket sleeve a tug.

The pads of the soft mittens slapped down over her legs, "Uncle Edderd!"

"I guess," Ed wrapped his arm around the bundle of child and swept her onto his lap, "Margaret, my name is Edward."

"Uh-huh, I said Edderd."

Winry tightened her cheeks to prevent her giggles from escaping as Ed let the comment sit with a lengthy pause.

"…And this is my friend, Winry."

Scrambling up from Ed's lap, little Margaret came to her feet upon the bench and came to stand at Winry's shoulder. The child's hair fell into her face without care and a set of silver eyes looked into Winry's.

"Hi!"

The sudden tremble that shot into Winry's hand quivered as she slowly brought the hand over her mouth. It was a horrid, ghastly sight to look at. She gazed into a set of eyes she was so certain she knew perfectly well, revitalized with an infusion of youth and innocence.

"Ed…" all Winry's voice could do was tremble in response, "she's…"

His left hand came down to wiggle the toque upon the child's head, "She's Margaret."

"Yes!" the child chirped.

Slowly straightening her posture, Winry's gaze never left the child. A sinking, disgusting feeling turned her stomach as she pulled a glove off and cupped her warm hand around the frame of the child's jaw, "Ed… she has Al's eyes… I'm staring back into Al's eyes…"

"That's why I figured she was Margaret…" Ed's attention turned over his shoulder again. A crowd stood down the path to watch the scene unfold. From within the group of four observers, two arms rose with a wave for the child and two young adults upon the bench.

"Mummy! Daddy! This is Uncle Edderd and Winny! They're here!"

Slowly Winry swallowed, and then turned to see the formation of individuals that had gathered no more than twenty meters down the path. The crowd spun her stomach; the sight behind her spun it so hard that she was certain she'd be sick if she moved too fast. And then there was Edward's voice again, echoing with the remnants of an old, painful memory. It was a perfect couple, the parents of the child standing at each other's side. The mother's arm was wrapped around the father's arm, grinning with a delight that existed around them, and them only.

"You know, when I left England, I didn't tell them I wasn't planning on coming back. I didn't really tell anyone except my dad where I was going. I brought up alchemy to Thomas a few times and he thought I was crazy. Patti said that people were wary of that kind of 'witchcraft'. But if I wanted to get home, I didn't think staying in England was going to get me anywhere, so I left."

In the back of her mind, lingering behind the disturbing confusion rested the thought that Edward had done similar things before. He'd tried to leave his past behind, start anew and create a new life to live. Backtracking was not something he was very adept at doing.

"How is this even…" Winry's eyes returned to Margaret as the little child waved to the crowd. Her fingers stiffly interlaced, elbows locked, and shoulders stiffened as she pushed her hands into her lap. So many questions had to be asked and there was so much she wanted to know. Winry quietly wondered which was the harder of the two tasks: gathering the courage to ask Ed the questions, or being in his shoes and having to answer them.

"How old is…?"

"Twenty six, I think."

Winry let the bizarre information settle in her head. Someone was driving a skewer into her skull and the perk Ed forced into his voice was the metal rod, "That's five years older than you. How's that possible?"

Margaret caught the pair's attention once again as she began bouncing on the bench. Ed's arm reached up and took her by the waist once more, pulling her off her feet until she settled down.

"On the train out here, Dad and I told you we theorized there were all types of people from home mirrored on this side of the Gate. Even so, time and lifelines between this side of the Gate and home are not in sync. There was another me on this side of the Gate, but not only did he have different parents, he had a different birth date as well; he was a year younger. When I came through the Gate originally, I was 16. I was matched up in the time frame where that Edward was also 16, it just happened to be a year later than it was back home. When I came back over a second time, the Gate dumped me within the last known timeframe the other 'me' had existed. A similar thing happened with my dad."

"What about me…?"

"I'm certain that the baby you talked about and Dante did something to throw things out of order," Ed's nose curled a bit at the thought.

Once again, Winry looked back at the group of adults, allowing the scene to do nothing but crush down on her soul. The story she'd been given on the train was a headache worthy explanation, and Winry's hands came to her mouth again as Ed spoke up once more.

"Everyone's existence on this side of the Gate is independent of the restraints found on the other side. The Winry on this side of the Gate might actually live in Norway, but right now she may be ten, twenty or even thirty years old."

Slowly she nodded as the information digested once again, "Because the lives of the people on this side aren't affected by the events in the lives of their other selves…"

"And vice versa," Ed pulled Margaret's hands away from her mouth as the child chewed on them, "people would be dying left, right and center back home if their lives were dependent. On this side of the Gate, people sit on death's doorstep and make frequent visits."

The little child lifted her free arms into Edward's face; he leaned his head away as she padded her hands over his nose. The child giggled as she pointed to his forehead, "Uncle Edderd's hair goes up."

"Margaret! Come here for a minute!" It was a gentle voice that called out, full of unmistakable warmth.

The voice brought Winry's hands clawing up to her ears as Edward placed the child down onto her feet, "I'm so sorry I wanted you to bring me here…"

"This is my dad's idea, not yours," with the child out of earshot, the resentment flooded into his low voice, "I don't know what the hell he's been thinking lately."

The footsteps of a lovely voice in a perfect body approached. The steps ended long before reaching the bench as the little girl jumped into her mother's arms.

"Margaret-love, why don't you ask Edward and his friend," the voice swept by their ears, a softness that infiltrated the harsh fall breeze, "if they'd turn around…"

"I'm so sorry…" Winry's hands cupped over her mouth. Her eyes flickered to Ed as he shook his head, rocking his jaw before finally straightening his back. How it must have hurt.

"… so I can have a picture of you three?"

"You know Winry, Al inherited Mom's eyes…" Edward turned the heavy gaze over his shoulder, looking into the delighted expressions of a woman and her daughter.

"The colour is a lot like Al's, but I think Margaret's eyes look more like my mom's."

Long and slender arms wrapped around the child trying to escape her mother's care. The woman kneeled; the oval eyes looking back at Edward were not a gentle green, but a brown to match the shades in her hair. She tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ear. There were no lengths of flowing hair, rather soft waves of brown hair, just a shade or two off dancing around her shoulder. The nippy breeze was trying to brush enough pink into her cheeks so that they'd come to match today's chosen shade of lipstick. Those lips quickly pursed, concealing that voice and subduing any more of her smile.

The differences were not enough, the moment he'd met this woman Edward was slapped in the face by how she carried his mother's poise. The way she moved, her gentle posturing, style of speech and tone of voice was something he had desperately struggled to differentiate.

_How dare you._

Her expression softened, as did Ed's. The corners of his mouth came to curl, and he turned forwards again upon hearing the scampering of feet patter towards him.

Vigorously, nervously, Winry's hands rubbed over her knees; holding Edward in the corner of her eye, "What's her name?"

"Patricia."

"Ed no…"

"We call her Patti. She's Thomas's wife."

"Uncle Edderd!"

Ed straightened his back, not immediately responding to the hail, "She's really nice, actually," spoken as though he carried the hope she would, "she makes a great roast, one of the few things around here that doesn't taste like cardboard."

"Uncle Edderd?" the mitt-covered hand came to tug on his sleeve.

Edward Elric spun around on the old, wooden bench. Tilting his head with feigned amusement, he took the only hand at his disposal, reached out and placed it down upon the top of the child's winter hat, "what is it?"

"Smile for Mummy!" was the chirp he received.

Ed's eyes shot over to Winry, the drained gaze watching as she slowly turned herself around as well. He did not aid the child this time as she crawled up onto the bench and placed herself proudly between the two people who were never meant to be a part of this picture.

"Winry…"

Her feet swept aside the crusty brown leaves scattered at her feet; scattered everywhere. The leaves covered the ground as far as the eye could see, ripped from their place in the sky, drained of their lives, and left for dead in a withering state.

Winry had yet to look over.

"Smile for her."

How fate had the audacity to play such a cruel joke on everyone was something Winry could only wonder.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

This chapter was originally posted at http / www . livejournal . com / users / yuuki / 97342 . html

Unexpectedly I was hit by the art bug one random Friday night and so the original livejournal post contains the accompanying art (since I can't put it here). I will ride this art thing as long as it wants to happen, my mind's willingness to draw likes to take extended vacations without me.

On the idea of AU!Trisha... I promised someone (I'm at a loss for whom) that I wouldn't do that because it was cruel. Yes, well... I changed my mind!

I hope what Ed was talking about regarding the life lines on either side of the Gate makes sense if any clarification is needed, please let me know.

Hug a plot bunny, leave a review :D


	21. Delirium Ghosts

I'm tired of this._  
You brought this on yourself._

I want to go home.  
_That's too bad, isn't it?_

What gives you the right...  
_I don't think you should be talking._

Do you know how sick I am of you?  
_Well, who's fault is that?_

I don't suppose you'd go find something else to do?  
_I'm appalled you think you deserve that._

I just thought I'd check.  
_Touché._

I won't apologize for anything.  
_And this is what you get, little man._

I'm going to get home.  
_The rock face is sheered off._

I bet you polished it, too.  
_I might have had a hand in it._

I'll climb it.  
_There'll be no net provided for you._

That's never stopped me before.  
_I look forward to the show._

* * *

**Chapter 72 - Delirium Ghosts**

Laughter floated in the air, mingling in the haze created by Dr. Wilson's pipe.

"No, no honestly," Patricia couldn't contain her giggles, "Margaret was running into my furniture long before she could stand on her own two feet. She'd prop herself up on all fours, pick her arms up and scamper across the carpet until she either bumped into the chesterfield or fell down. It was the strangest sight."

"And it's all Thomas' fault too that the child tries to sprint," smoke filtered from his mouth as the doctor spoke, "in the summer he took her to see a friend at the university track while the runners were on the field."

A voice shot out from another room, "Would you stop telling that story!"

Among the giggling adults, the aforementioned child had found herself a new perch, delightfully positioned on Winry's knees. Tiny Margaret may have been most content there because she received the most freedom.

Of the four corners of the cozy family room, Winry occupied the far left while Ed occupied the nearest left. The two had sat down in their respective seats and not moved. Aside from the occasional question thrown Winry's way, neither voluntarily brought conversation upon themselves.

This was day two.

For the most part, people seemed content to ignore their unease, leave them be and continue about their business.

Hohenheim had done his part to relieve some of the tension Ed had created. Earlier, he had stepped aside with the Hyland husband and wife to explain the previous two weeks as well as the night that had just passed beneath Dr. Wilson's roof. The nightcap that evening had included the bitterly screeched argument that had developed between Ed and Winry at sometime past eleven that night, where Winry refused to take up residence in the guest room unless Ed retired for some sleep as well. After a vicious war of words had exploded between Dr. Wilson and Edward over the noise level, the argument of two stubborn, young adults had ended with Winry glaring at Ed as he attempted to read that day's paper.

Winry'd awoken the next day, curled up in a purple blanket in the rocking chair she'd fallen asleep in. Ed still sat in the same chair, his eyes dissecting the new day's paper. Before giving any indication she'd awoken, memories of the previous night's dinner with the Hyland family quickly came flooding back.

She'd sat at the table, across from Patricia, who had her daughter on one side and husband on the other. Ed had sat across from Thomas, Hohenheim from Margaret, and Dr. Wilson had taken up the head of the table. For the next hour and a half, she'd felt as though she'd been the source of all their discomfort.

She'd sat around the whole night at a loss of words: for the life of herself she could barely manage a four-word sentence. Ed would nudge her once in a while, having caught her staring, quite blatantly, at the woman across from her. She'd try to avoid it by focusing on other things: the location, the food, and the bustle around her. As she'd done so, she'd come to realize how it seemed she was trying to avoid being part of the dinner table.

It was embarrassing, it was rude, and she had not been able to figure out how to avoid it.

Winry had vowed before rising: today, she'd do a better job of being social. Patricia announced she'd cook dinner for everyone and it was the perfect opportunity.

That woman was not Ed's mother.

She should have no reason to stare at her with such fascination, wonder, and curiosity like she was some priceless, newly unearthed, artifact.

Winry quickly realized that she'd failed at her attempt to disregard the woman's presence.

But conversing with a two-year-old girl that gave her fleeting reminders of Al was a far lesser challenge, "Are you going to be a sprinter, Margaret?"

"No," the little girl stuck out her tongue.

Winry puffed out her lower lip, "Why not?"

"Splinters hurt!"

Patricia laughed at her daughter's misunderstanding and stepped away from the side of Dr. Wilson's chair.

Winry grinned and glanced over to her mother. Even with all the problems Winry was having with the situation at hand, Patricia seemed to read people like a book and had quickly grown shy because of it. Winry wished she could give both herself and Ed a kick in the ass for making the woman so reserved around them.

Once gathering herself after the initial encounter, Winry quickly came to realize that it was Ed who made this woman uncomfortable. Where Ed had little to say and Winry struggled to converse, Patricia said scarcely any more in their company. She kept her comments short and direct, walked on the opposite side of her husband, and grew obviously nervous when speaking directly to Ed.

"Patti," wiping his hands in a rag, Thomas finally emerged from the kitchen, "I'm going to have to call the repairman."

"Did you figure out what's wrong with the stove?" she asked as the man came to stand next to his wife.

Shrugging with general frustration, Thomas threw his gaze to the ceiling, "I think I buggered the thing up worse than it was to begin with."

"I'm sorry everyone, I thought we'd fixed this problem weeks ago. I was really hoping to have something ready for tonight," her soft hands smoothed over her skirt before placing a hand against her husband's back.

Unexpectedly, Winry's voice broke in, "Can I look at it?"

"Why yes!" Charles snapped his fingers, capturing the couple's attention before either could respond, "I've heard from our good man Hohenheim that young Miss Rockbell is an aspiring _mechanic_. Perhaps a feminine touch is needed."

Winry's brow slowly wrinkled at the phrasing and tone of the doctor's comment, it sounded more like an insult than a compliment.

Stepping away from his perch, Thomas motioned towards the kitchen, his wife following in stride, "Alright, if you want to take a shot at it. I won't turn down a free offer like that; I certainly cannot afford another repairman."

Placing little Margaret on her feet, Winry tightened her shoulders and once again reminded herself what she'd vowed that morning. She let her attention slip to Edward's distant figure, silently locked away in the corner of the couch. She wondered if, or even how, she was supposed to say anything to him.

* * *

"Okay, this is how we'll do it."

Sitting upon the rug in the middle of the Ross family cabin, Brigitte looked to Alphonse as the boy rolled up his sleeves. Atop the rug, Alphonse dropped the load of crayons, markers, pencils and pads of paper he had held in his arms. Coming to his knees, Al slid a steno pad between Brigitte and himself then flipped it open. Taking the fattest black marker, he used three lines for each character he wrote down.

Brigitte curiously tilted her head, sliding over to get a straighter image of what he was doing.

"We'll start with this," pausing, he handed her a red marker, "we'll start at the beginning and go from there."

The perplexed expression upon Brigitte's face grew curious the more he spoke.

"I'm going to read these off and write the spelling underneath. You're going to do that too, okay?"

It was going to have to be okay;, until Alphonse was done Brigitte would continue to carry her disconcerted expression.

"This is 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four'…" in block letters, Alphonse wrote down the spelling of the numbers as he called them out, "'eight', 'nine', and 'ten'," he promptly capped his pen and quickly found he'd been cut off by Brigitte, who'd started far ahead of her cue.

"'eins', 'zwei', 'drei'…"

From the kitchen, the prying eyes of the adult audience gave a collective brow rise. Alphonse stole a quick glance back at them, quite delighted with the instant progress he'd begun to make.

With her arm slung over the back of her chair at the kitchen table they sat at, Izumi's fingers strummed on the tabletop, "She's very intuitive."

"Al," Mustang called out as Brigitte announced 'zehn' upon reaching 10, "have her fill out the sheet to thirty-one."

Maria gave a curious eye to her superior, "You're going to have her fill out a calendar?"

"Yes," he slowly nodded, "it would be good to know how far off the child's knowledge of time is."

As he'd done most of the day, Mustang's good eye flickered over Izumi. He'd watched her attention continually shift from the adult group to the two children since they'd awoken. He was certain that her thoughts were tied up in the scenario Brigitte was creating for them and was simply waiting for the most opportune moment to discuss it. Everyone had seen it and everyone had questioned it: the dates on Brigitte's documents and the age of the elder Elric in the photo.

"Done!"

Mustang straightened in his seat. At the wave of his hand, he motioned for the boy to join them with the dual-language sheet of paper in hand. As the boy came to the table, Roy took the package he'd created of photographs and trinkets collected from Brigitte's bag and slipped her identification card and a train ticket out from the collage.

"The dates on everything Havoc pulled out of her wallet range from 03.17.1908 to 08.15.1921," Mustang extended his hand and took the pad of paper from Alphonse, "I need you to find out what year she thinks she was born and what year she thinks it is now," with the flick of his wrist, he tore off the top sheet of numbers, "let's copy this, and find out if she understands our calendar structure."

Al gave a slow nod, turning to look back at Brigitte as the girl observed the gathering.

"I'd also like to find out who the people are in her photos, as well as her parents names and siblings if she has any. Use the numbers and get their birth dates, ages, and anything else that's relevant."

Alphonse paused at Mustang's long list of demands; to him, it felt like he was to hold an inquisition. Shooting a glance to Brigitte one last time, a hint of frustration crossed his face, "How does that help her tell us where my brother is?"

It was Izumi's voice that interjected before any other, "We need to create some legs to stand upon before we can take that step forwards."

Deliberately disrupting Mustang's intended focus for the afternoon, Izumi left a question open for Maria, "has Brigitte figured out when you're calling her over to you?"

"I think so," with a few waves of her hand, Maria turned her attention to the girl, "Brigitte, come over here."

Rising to her feet, pen in hand, Brigitte marched made her way over to the table, straightening her dress as she stood amongst a daunting gathering of onlookers.

"Al, before you continue with what Mr. Mustang is asking," Izumi's attention drew to a focus, "I want to know something."

Izumi reached out and delicately took Brigitte by the wrist as she pulled the girl towards her. Putting an arm around the child's waist, Izumi sat Brigitte down upon her left knee and pulled the sheet of German and English numbers away from Mustang.

"May I take this?" Izumi put her fingertips over the end of the marker in Brigitte's hand and slowly removed it from her possession, "thank you."

The puzzled frown never left Brigitte's expression as she watched the woman orchestrate the gathering at the table, somewhat to Mustang's dismay.

Placing the tip of the marker down upon the paper, Izumi circled the number eleven Alphonse had written and wrote 'Alphonse Elric' above the printed digits.

"That is how old Alphonse is," tearing out a clean sheet, Izumi turned the explanation into a formula and wrote it ou t for Brigitte to read.

'Alphonse Elric 11'

Below that equation, Izumi wrote 'Brigitte ?' and returned the pen to the girl's possession.

"Do you understand what I'm looking for?"

Beyond the word 'understand', which came up in nearly second sentence spoken to her some days, Brigitte was at a loss with the verbal question. However, the visual question equation was far more helpful.

"Dreizehn," and with that, she circled and wrote her name above the number 13 and wrote in the answer to Izumi's formula.

The tension rose from the table at the sudden realization of the clear line of communication. The bodies loosened and leaned forwards as Izumi took the pen once again from Brigitte's hand and wrote one more formula

'Edward Elric ?'

Brigitte's nose wrinkled, "_I don't know…_"

"She doesn't know," Maria spoke up, "Of all the things she says, I'm pretty sure I've figured out that much."

"That's not it," Mustang stepped into the problem, catching something in Brigitte's tone that cause his refusal for a break in the current communication line, "it's Ed's age she doesn't know, Lieutenant. She understands the question," he redirected his speech to Brigitte and Izumi, "narrow it down for her."

Izumi had already taken that step. With the tip of the pen resting on 15, Izumi looked up into the girl's eyes for a response, "Is Edward fifteen?"

"No."

A grin swept over Al's face, delighted by how she'd responded to the question.

Nodding, Izumi's pen slid up a number, "Is Edward sixteen?"

Brigitte's answer did not change, "No."

"Is Edward seventeen?"

"No."

With the grind of her jaw, Izumi raised her number count while once more moving her pen, "Eighteen?"

"No."

Noting the disconcertion that developed at the table at Brigitte's responses, Riza offered an explanation, "Her age perception is going to be skewed. She is a fair bit younger than him, he might seem older to her by comparison."

Izumi continued to hold Brigitte's attention; her pen danced between two numbers, "Are you certain he's not seventeen? Or eighteen?"

With a suddenly ferocity to her behaviour, Brigitte snatched the pen back from Izumi and leaned over the paper, "No, no, no," she struck thick X's through the numbers 15, 16 and 17, "_Mr. Elric is much older than that. He said he came to Germany two years ago and has worked with his father at the university the whole time. You have to be an adult to work at the university, so it's not this either,_" Brigitte's red pen struck through 18 and 19, "no, no."

Fascinated eyes peered in closer to watch the display of swift pen strokes, "_Mrs. Oberth told me when we were shopping that she was 26 and that Mr. Elric was a few years younger than her. So, not this,_" her marker tip struck through 25 and 24, "no, no!"

Below Izumi's equation, Brigitte rewrote the formula, 'Edward Elric 20? 21? 22? 23?'

Capping the pen and dropping it to the table's surface, Brigitte's hands came to grip the edge of the table as though challenging anyone who questioned her.

Amidst the silence, Mustang's hand took up the train ticket he'd taken from the collection of Brigitte's foreign treasures. Stamped in fading, black ink was the date: 08.15.1921. The present information made little to no sense. Yet, one late night after they'd arrived, he'd let his mind run free, creating the most impossible 'what if' scenarios; scenarios that had, until that moment, had no believable base to build upon.

Upon arrival of that August ticket date in four years time, Edward Elric would be 22 years old.

Upon arrival of that same August date, it would be 13 years past the date printed on the identification card in Brigitte's wallet.

The only response given to the unarguable insistence Brigitte gave to Izumi's question came from Mustang's lips as he burned the two equations for Brigitte and Edward's age into his mind.

"Impossible."

* * *

There was a grey, cloudy-water existence that sat behind his eyelids before sleep. Today, it was a bit more colourful. There was a thin trail of red smoke drifting around, carrying the powerful aroma of a freshly sliced apple. Dancing around the dispersing thread was the whipping talon of a blue ribbon; with every wave of the tail, the loose fibers at the end broke off and added a hint of blueberry to the apple's domain.

"Edward?"

The gentle tips of thin fingers touched his shoulder and Ed jumped violently.

The hand that had wanted to coax him softly from near sleep quickly recoiled, and Patricia sat back upon her knees at the side of his chair. An insecure arm reached across the white apron covering her stomach, lightly holding her other arm at the elbow as she sat upon the floor. Her voice was held at a whisper, nearly devoid of self-assurance, yet remained delicate with enunciation.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

For the brief moment after his head had risen off the chair's arm in alarm, Ed became the one who should have apologized for the startled, golden gaze that he'd looked back upon her with.

His attention quickly turned away. Without the energy to maneuver very far, Edward's gaze shifted to catch what he could of his surroundings. The chair Winry had sat in and the other Dr. Wilson had lounged upon were vacant. The ashtrays, wine glasses, water glasses, and scattering of children's toys had all been removed. The gathering he'd barely partaken in no longer resided in the room. Filtering into the unexpected silence was the familiar echo of voices from beyond the hall. Floating in the air were the scents from the candle arrangement lit upon the mantle, a colourful assortment including the thick wax columns of ripe apple and succulent blueberry.

There was a time, too long ago, his mother use to fill the mantle like that…

"It's alright Patti," Edward's left hand came up to rub his bloodshot eyes.

Patricia tucked her legs beneath her dress as she knelt upon the rug covered floor panels, her fingertips dug into the white ends of her apron, slowly folding it end over end, "Winry's been very helpful, she and Thomas almost have the stove fixed."

"I'm sure Winry will have it running better than it had been before," Edward tried again to unsuccessfully wipe the exhaustion from his eyes and cheeks.

"I'm glad you brought her with you."

"She was looking forward to it."

There was no willing power left that could coax his head up any longer. The lead weight growing in his head connected his forehead to the chair's armrest. He'd feel better if he could get up and walk it off, but the weight in his arm, chest and leg ballooned; the feeling was nauseating.

The rustle of clothing was clear, and Ed listened as Patricia rose to her feet, only to crouch down again and fold her arms over the part of the chair's arm where Edward's forehead resided.

"Edward…"

The last thing Ed should have done was turn to look at her, but it was the first thing he did. He sat in such dangerous proximity to a pair of eyes with an unmistakable look. The lips moved with an identical sound. It was something he could never forget.

__

"Edward, I know you can do better than that."

No two people in any world should ever be allowed to look at him that way.

"Edward, wouldn't it be best if you lay down upstairs?" brushing a shade of hair that was a little too dark over her shoulders, Patti soon let her eyes mingle elsewhere in the room, "dinner still won't be ready for a while, so if you lay down for a bit you might feel better once things are ready. We have a spare bed that would be far more comfortable than this is."

Ed forced himself up with the shake of his head, nearly intoxicated by the exhaustion he'd been unable to ward off, "No, I'm fine."

"Edward, please," rising upon to her feet, the woman's slender, delicate fingers dug into the chair's arm. Her quiet voice a little stronger than it had been before, "you look frightful."

"I don't want to miss your dinner when it comes."

"Edward honestly, my dinner is not that important."

He hated that look. _That_ expression on her face that was never meant to be cruel, yet it ripped into his heart and crushed down with relentless force. Edward told himself, again and again and again, that he could get used to being around her once more, even if it had taken him months to get used to her presence the first time.

"Patti, it-"

The last thing Ed had been expecting was his father's hand to freeze and silence him. Never once had he turned around far enough to see the man standing at the opposite side of the chair.

"Edward."

Normally, that commanding tone used with his name drew a fierce reaction. But Ed remained motionless, caught between a powerful hand and a pleading presence.

"Listen to some advice and go lay down."

The surreal state he sat in between was unfair. This was not his mother and he didn't want the other to be his father.

Both were behaving as though they should be his parents.

Without a response to either of them, Ed slowly took his crutch from the floor. Using what remained of his strength, he pulled himself up and tucked the wooden prop under his arm.

Edward reminded himself that there was the black escape known as sleep to free him from all this. But getting there… staying there was something entirely different. His mind's eye wouldn't let him arrive and his ears refused to join him, constantly alert and booting him back into some other reality.

Ed glanced absently around the room, not to observe anything, just to remind himself of his surroundings. This house had a type of warmth and it existed with just enough of that flavour to leave him with a finger touching the shell of what it was, but different enough that he couldn't loose himself within it.

He hated London.

He'd tried so hard to convince himself of that.

* * *

"It's mad at me."

The artificial child's braids fanned out like a dancer's ribbon as she turned around.

Aisa kept her distance, wary of the monster rising above her, "What makes you say that?"

Barely able to hold the crying infant in her arms, the Dante-child returned to looking into the empty void that existed beyond daunting Gate doors that had opened wide.

"I can finally stand uncontested at its doors, and it doesn't let me see a thing," the woman's soul pouted in a child's voice, "I've brought the most powerful force to its knees, and it still denies me."

It was true. The woman who'd refused to submit to mortality had her greatest adversary by the throat and at the touch of her hands, the Gate opened its doors. Cradling a howling baby in her arms, Dante had approached uncontested. With the silent motion of her final forward step, she stood, face to face, with its aura, it's power, it's rage…

And it refused to acknowledge her.

For today, and the weeks before and those that would follow, the Gate's rage remained suppressed and its secrets carefully tucked away behind the black void beyond the doors.

"Stubborn beast," no naturally born juvenile could have forced so much boiling frustration into such a lovely set of blue eyes.

Aisa attempted to reaffirm Dante's beliefs by deflecting the frustration, "Are you certain that Brigitte came from the other side of the Gate?"

With her head tossed high, an inarguable, confidant grin flowed into her expression. Someone had the gall to yet again challenge her wisdom; how profoundly insulting.

"I have witnessed these doors more times than any man could ever wish to see in his life time. Each time she opens her doors, the visions I glimpse at are unimaginable. The knowledge within is unreachable. The wealth of power is unobtainable. Sometimes the Gate allows me to get so close to understanding something that I feel as though I could inhale the swell of knowledge."

The petite body turned and took her decent of the Gate's doorstep with as much grace as childish legs would allow, the radiating yellow aura of the Gate's presence creating buoyancy to her strides.

"I'd thought, at first, that I'd made a mistake with Diana. When I sent Miss. Rockbell to the Gate's doors I never once considered that the auxiliary feedback within the transmutation I'd initiated was a result of something coming through in return, and not an error in the Diana methodology."

Never would Dante mention how frightened she had been at her first attempt at using the infant to tap into the Gate. Nor would she mention the overwhelming power she'd found herself crushed beneath when the flow of the transmutation felt as thought it was ready to rebound upon her at Brigitte's arrival.

Extending Nina's arms, Dante returned the infant to Aisa, and sucked in a deep, exhilarating breath of the warm air, before the Gate vanished.

"It was imperfections within my Diana that created that misunderstanding." her tiny fingers caught the end of a swinging braid. Sliding it into the tips of her fingers, she slowly untied the elastic at the end and began unraveling the perfect folds of hair, "I'd assumed I would get to see beyond the Gate when something came through, and that did not happen. I suppose, in order to see any of it, I'd need an actual infant from the other side, rather than using one of the Gate's children for Diana. She's quite similar to Wrath in that regard."

The tiny fingertips ran through silk-soft, brown hair; smoothing the waves created from the day-long braids she'd worn. Her hair swayed down her back, and Dante entertained herself with the thought of how nice it felt to have such long hair stream over her back and dance around the base of her spine.

Her tiny, polished, black dress shoes echoed off the floor as her arms flew out to her sides; left over right she stepped, turning herself around endlessly in the darkened ballroom. The waves of hair fanned out around her shoulders and the dress flew out around thin, pale thighs. Slowly, the perfectly taken ballet steps slipped into silence. Both the dress and locks of hair came to rest around her body as the cruel delight flowed into her smile once again. She'd had the fortune of being able to disguise that look with youthful innocence, but it danced into her eyes continuously since she'd come to understanding Brigitte and Winry's transmutation.

"Yes Aisa, she came from beyond the Gate. The only two people who would even have the slightest knowledge on how to create the type of auxiliary transmutation the child traveled on would have been Hohenheim and Envy. And Hohenheim is dead in the Gate."

"This would be the first time we've been contacted from beyond the Gate, it is not?" Aisa adjusted Diana in her arms as the child continued to whine, "no one has ever given us a hint at their existence before."

With the potential for another existence, it was a question she'd thought about for more than half her years. Decade after decade, she'd considered the possibilities, but only one answer came out as the most logical.

"They've had no reason to," a touch of bitterness was thrown into her tone of near admiration, "we are nothing that they would even consider worthy of their time. Their knowledge and abilities far exceeds ours."

The three breathing bodies stood in silence upon the polished dance floor of the underground city's ballroom. Except for a scattering of weak candles to light the entrance path, the hall stood in darkness and Dante never touched her hands to illuminate the room. A chill had swept up around everyone at the change in warmth once they'd left the Gate's presence and Diana finally slipped into silence as Dante rolled a shiver off her soft, smooth shoulders.

"There was a time, thousands of years ago, where tales were told about travelers who'd come from another world in search of wisdom. They searched for something called Tartaros and found themselves here during their quest. They were said to have traveled through an unspeakable hell to obtain knowledge and returned to their world with what we offered them." With the sharp flick of her wrist, Dante used Nina's tiny hand to sweep the hair covering her forehead away, "These stories became etched into alchemy folklore and have slowly vanished within the last several hundred years. But in that ancient time, the secrets of our alchemy had been lent out, developed, surpassed, and then kept from us."

The dull echo that the tiny, black shoes created in the hall carried nowhere near the excitement that they'd had within the Gate's presence. Dante marched forward, her silent assistant and infant tool following close behind. With the slight touch of her hands and the quick, dismissing flick of her wrists, the faint candlelight vanished as she stepped out the doors.

"Before this body is ruined, I believe it's time for the other side to return the favour. I have no intention of surrendering to the curse of my soul's age quite yet. Something must exist beyond that Gate which will give me the longevity I'll need to continue on."

* * *

Around the time he had seen Dante for the first time in not nearly long enough, Hohenheim had realized that perhaps he was growing senile. He could not recall, for certain, the exact year of his initial birth. There were people, bodies and personas he'd taken on, names upon names that he'd memorized, countless dates of various people's birth dates, death dates, and dates for all sorts of reasons. Over time, the memories of 100 years ago had fallen into the conglomerate of those 150 and 200 years prior.

Throughout that time, he'd noted a trend in mankind. Long before photography and in a time when the only way you'd retain a portrait of your loved one was through the talents of an artist, Hohenheim noted how granddaughters in life's prime looked like their grandmothers of old and how young sons resembled their fathers before life's hardships weighed down upon them. Even in a vast gene pool where such unique shapes, figures, eyes, noses and mouths were passed onto the next generation, within a hundred or even a hundred and fifty years, two people could come together to pass along the right characteristics to create a near visual replica of someone's long deceased ancestor – someone that only Hohenheim remembered.

It startled him every time.

Once or twice, before he'd given himself five hundred years to cope with such a thing, Hohenheim had called out the wrong name, mentioned the wrong acquaintance's spouse, or forgotten that this friend had no children.

But Patricia had been a far harder existence to reconcile in his mind. Where Edward had done his best to avoid her, Hohenheim had moved closer, if only to uncover everything he could to assure himself that this was in no way the woman he loved. She was taller, her hair was a deeper shade, her eyes were a different colour, and her age was not even close.

At the age of 22, Patricia Margaret Spence had first been introduced to Hohenheim.

Three days after Edward's defiance towards this world's lack of alchemy had resurfaced.

Three days after he'd stated that he'd unearth something, anything to get him back home.

Three days after Hohenheim's son had already been introduced to her.

And now, once again, he moved about trying to re-adjust to the situation.

"You won't wake him?" Patti's hands clasped over her skirt, speaking quietly as she watched Hohenheim cradle his son's head with one hand and slip the hair tie away with the other.

"Patti," his hand pulled away and Ed's head came to rest on the pillow once again. Silent, the son's arm lay lifeless on the mattress at the side of his head, the solitary hand rested half curled in the pillow at his head, "unless I'm trying to catch his attention, he doesn't wake up when I move him."

Rising to his feet, the father's trailing hand swept a few stray strands of hair from Edward's face and stepped towards the door where the young mother stood, "Are you sure this isn't a problem?"

Upon his exit, Patricia pulled the door until only a sliver of space remained, not clicking it shut, "Of course not. I told you, if he was still sleeping when you were ready to leave he could most certainly stay the night," her slippers made a soft pop off the back of her heel with each step she took, "he's been so silent all day long."

Patricia Spence had been raised in a wealthier family with two elder sisters and a younger brother, she'd attended and graduated from all her levels of schooling with strong marks and had undertaken a stint at a local institution where she'd become proficient at stenography and short hand. She'd met her future husband, Thomas, at a presentation given by her father where she'd been employed as the minutes taker. On her more leisurely side, Hohenheim slowly learnt of the woman's love for horseback riding and found out quickly from the girl's parents how 'uncooth' she was for preferring to straddle the horse rather than ride sidesaddle.

For every moment he'd spent with her, Hohenheim would soon uncover just enough to make this woman the eventual Patricia Hyland and not the Trisha Elric he still loved.

And yet, he'd still follow the sound of a lovely voice down the hall, and attempt to deny some part of him that continued to yearn for that sound to be something for him.

The pair stopped for a moment, looking down from the top of the staircase to the solitary figure waiting for them at the bottom.

"Is he still asleep?" Winry tilted her head.

"Yes," Hohenheim waited for Patricia to descend a few steps before following.

A delightful grin crossed Patti's face once more as she cast her smile over Winry, "Thank you again for your help today Winry, the repair man costs so much to bring in. I can't thank you enough."

The tendrils of Winry's hair swayed around her arms as she shook her head, "No that's fine, thank you for dinner, it was delicious."

"I'll save a plate for Edward, for when he wakes up," Patricia slipped the full-length apron she'd worn all evening off of her neck and wrapped it around her arm, "I feel bad for him, he wanted dinner and I pushed him to lay down instead."

Hohenheim gave a chuckle at her concern, placing a hand down on her shoulder, "I think we all prefer a well rested Edward over a well fed one."

"After what you told me, I didn't expect him to fall asleep so suddenly once he laid down," Patricia gave a fleeting glance up the stairwell as her fingertips came to her chin, "I was searching for an extra blanket and he was asleep before I ever found one."

Winry's gaze drifted over to her, a smile crawling across her face at the delicate manner in which Patricia composed herself, "Maybe he's a little more comfortable up there than you think."

"I don't believe that's it," Patti gave a laugh at the statement, folding her arms across her stomach with unease once more.

Pausing in thought of the comment, Hohenheim gave a shake of his head, "I'm sorry about him Patricia, I didn't mean to bring him over to make things uneasy for you."

"Oh no," the woman's hands rose in defense, "don't apologize, you were saying over dinner that he's been through some dreadful things recently. Please don't think I'm upset, I'm so glad everyone's here."

Winry found herself needing to shiver to break out of the daze she'd found her way into. She had gotten lost watching, no, staring, at this woman. Her voice sounded of the sweetness of a mother she'd known, her body flowed with a figure she'd recognized, yet her demeanor seemed more timid and submissive than the strong mother she remembered. Winry wondered how many times Ed had been caught 'staring' at her.

It felt as though a ghost drifted about the household.

"Shall we head back into the family room?" Hohenheim offered the suggestion, holding up his arm for Patricia to take.

The woman laughed, taking his arm, grinning enough to wash away the concern, "Sounds splendid, there's still some time left in the evening, isn't there."

"You know what I think would be 'splendid'," Hohenheim stepped forwards along side the mirror image of his wife, "a piano."

"Why on earth would you want a piano at this time of night?"

Hohenheim mused, "When Edward was young, I used to take him and his mother to the hall in our township, it was out near the train station."

Winry's attention suddenly became sucked into Hohenheim's every word.

"There were some nights I'd sit down at the piano and play for her. Those were wonderful evenings."

"Hohenheim," Patricia's steps ground to a halt, "you've never mentioned you played the piano."

A quirky smirk, reminiscent of his son, momentarily showed itself, "I have many years on you Patricia, in there has been plenty of time to learn the piano."

"Then, before you leave England you must play for everyone."

Winry watched the pair move in suspended animation and her feet lost their motion. The woman's arm had been taken by his in a playful, social display through the household. A soothing warmth continued to drift around the house and Winry's fingers came up to rest silently on her bottom lip, watching two figures she had no memory of ever seeing stand side by side.

Her parents used to do that, she recalled: stand side by side or arm in arm. When they were home, they'd head into town and bring her along. She'd play and dance with the other children in the town hall as her parents moved side-by-side, arm in arm, or hand in hand to the elegant sounds of the piano or bouncing tunes of the trumpets. There had been so many memories vanish over time, but she still carried the precious, picture perfect memory of her parents existing in harmony that way. What she didn't have was that sort of clear memory of Edward and Alphonse in that same hall. Their mother never attended the dances. Why Winry could now remember asking her parents why Edward and Alphonse never came was beyond her; but the answer hurt.

Each Saturday night, the two families would leave their neighbouring houses and walk into town. Trisha Elric had always danced and laughed along side her husband. The family always brought their boys along to play with all the other children. However, Trish had no plans to return to the dance hall until her husband returned.

At some point in her young life, Winry must have witnessed this broken Elric family as one; the faint memory of dancing with a round, pudgy-faced Alphonse who bounced around without care for the music's rhythm filtered into her thoughts.

Again Winry caught herself staring and she shook herself from it. Throwing her gaze back to the stairwell, she peered up into the darkened hallway, wondering what Edward's mind's eye recalled each time his unwanted father and incorrect mother stood side by side.

* * *

What remained of the day's light gradually became only a sliver of gold outlining the distant horizon. In the country, especially on the darkest of nights, the moon shone down with far more radiance than any porch light could have. The lake's surface continued to reflect the towering presence of nature surrounding it, the white disc in the middle of the lake looked oddly familiar to the one in the sky.

He heard the footsteps approach. There was a way she walked that Alphonse could always recognize. Slowly, the feet scraped to a stop at the tip of the pier the young Elric sat upon. The moon enjoyed pretending it could behave just as its cousin, the sun, did and tossed its soft, night rays off the golden wedding band decorating her hand.

"Did you hear me call you inside?"

"I didn't," Alphonse gave a slow shake of his head, "I'm sorry."

Izumi pulled her feet out of the slippers she wore; setting them behind her, she came to sit upon the final two wooden planks at the end of the pier next to Alphonse. Her bare legs to extend over the water and she skimmed the tips of her toes through the distilled surface, "Did something catch your eye?"

"Not really."

Izumi invited nothing more into the conversation; she'd wait.

The late evening left everything to the imagination. Shapes that had once been so perfectly defined beneath the sunlight melted into a solid mass that swayed within the light breeze drifting in of the water's surface. Izumi looked up to the black, star-speckled expanse above their quiet spot; the decorative ceiling never seemed to look this good in Dublith and Central.

"Brigitte's really smart. We talked a lot today."

"Did you?"

"Well, it was more like a never ending game of charades and pictionary."

Izumi's hands ran over her kneecaps as she slouched forwards, her eyes allowed to relax in the outdoors thanks to the absence of the sun's glare.

Placing his head down upon the wooden deck and clasping his hands across his stomach, Alphonse laid back on the planks. He allowed his mind to be sucked away into the never-ending sky.

"Brigitte has a sister, a mom and a dad. I think she lives in a city that's either called Berlin, München or London. Apparently, she thinks it's September, 1921," Al pulled his feet to the pier's end, hooking his toes onto the wooden edge. Exhaustion was evident in his voice as his syllables slurred out in monotone, bleeding carelessly one into the next, "My brother might be twice my age and the height of the brigadier general. She used a crayon to go on and on about his eyes and how they were yellow. Then she started to talk about his arm and leg. I guess he has AutoMail again."

From the corner of her eye, Izumi caught the muscles in Alphonse's feet tighten as his toes clenched onto the wood.

"When she was trying to tell me about him, she started talking about 'Homunculus'."

Her mind suddenly barricaded the sanctuary of the evening from her mind and Izumi sat without a response, caught off guard buy the statement.

"She even spelt it out."

"… Is that so."

Pulling her gaze over her shoulder, Izumi watched with concern as Alphonse sat up again, stretching out his legs before he extended his feet over the pier's edge again.

"At some point while she was going on about it, she started to laugh," he shook his head, "I don't know why you'd laugh about something like that."

Izumi came to face forward again, folding her arms across her chest, and pulling the toes of her right foot out of the water as she crossed one leg over the other. That was not a word she'd anticipated to hear in conjunction with Brigitte's name, "Did you try to get her to elaborate?"

Al gave a weak shrug of his shoulders and a near roll of his eyes, "I don't think she understood what I was talking about when I tried. It got kind of frustrating."

Izumi's hand swept back over her hair, her index finger hooking around the hair-tie holding her locks back. She couldn't help but ask herself, '_why did both their languages have such a word in common'_, and '_why did the discrepancy in reaction towards it exist'_. Again, the unspoken plea for a significant break in the language barrier came up in not only Izumi's, but Alphonse's mind as well.

"There's a lot we don't know and don't understand about her situation," Izumi gave verbal recognition to the seeds of doubt planted in their dilemma, "we don't know for certain if she even came from the Gate or why her information is caught up in such a huge time discrepancy. Homunculus might mean something else."

"Every time I figure something out, I learn something more confusing," the retort came with bite as the young Elric's fingers twitched into fists, "my brother _is in_ the Gate."

Izumi gave into a lengthy exhale.

"If she's seen him, if she's taken his picture like that, she'd have to have come from the Gate. It makes sense," a faint hint of desperation ran into Alphonse's voice; no one was going to trample upon the swell of hope that his brother may be alive.

Somewhere.

With all the strength and hope he could gather, he wanted to believe that.

"Don't jump to conclusions."

Izumi's responses always seemed to be logical, rational and reasonable. Even if Alphonse did not want to hear this logic, it was there, it existed and he had to acknowledge it. There was very little point in attempting to contest her reasons, engaging in a fight like that with Izumi was like asking to get kicked into the water.

He simply wished she wasn't always right.

"Sensei…"

Alphonse rolled his jaw as he chewed on the inside of his cheek; he'd learnt so much more than he'd wanted to let on.

Conversing with Brigitte was like siphoning in power: the knowledge he gained from her was a power he had, a treasure he'd discovered and a mystery all his own to unravel. The mystery was far more fascinating than any novel he could indulge in, because in some way, all of it related back to him.

"All afternoon, Brigitte drew a bunch of pictures and wrote a lot of things down that I didn't understand," needlessly, Al rubbed his hands over his kneecaps as though he was trying to warm them, "she was drawing pictures for me during super. I'd wanted her to talk more about my brother, so I got her to draw him in the middle and place people around him."

Something in his tone caught Izumi's attention, it carried the undertones of a child's raging excitement; it was that bubbling secret that she realized Alphonse cradled out on the pier.

"She drew two people on one side of my brother and named them 'Tilly Oberth' and 'Hermann Oberth'. On the other side she drew someone and wrote 'Hohenheim' above it."

It felt as though the lake intended to surge up around them and suck them beneath the surface. Izumi looked at the youngest son who'd been handed the name of his father by a near stranger in his life.

"I guess the word 'dad' is something that she was able to recognize."

Izumi had never mentioned to Al the story she's once shared with Ed regarding Dante and Hohenheim's relationship. Nor had the family shared with Alphonse the story of how he'd spent a day last summer with his father for the first time in over ten years. Back then, Al had never shared with anyone what he'd discussed with his father over the course of that night. The memory, what was said, remembered and treasured by the only child Hohenheim had who did not look back upon him with vicious resentment, was lost. The family reached a decision: it was far less damaging to the youngest Elric, who had fresh memories of the death of his mother, the loss of his brother and was fully aware he'd lost the previous five years of his life, to not let him know that he'd lost the only memory of his father as well.

"She identified him as your father?"

Al nodded slowly, "Yeah."

Izumi momentarily wondered why it seemed so hard for her to accept the concept, "Brigitte called him 'Hohenheim'?"

Again, Al nodded, holding back a wistful smile, "She spelt his name right too."

For Brigitte to be able to produce such a name and relate it to Ed was dumbfounding. Even in the height of their fame, the Elric brothers did not acknowledge any relation to their father.

"There's no reason for that man to be involved," Izumi slowly attempted to wrap her mind around the name. For the years she'd spent under Dante's tutelage, the name had been as taboo as human transmutation; she almost wondered if her own teacher's loathing for the name had been passed on to her. All she had to do to reference him with the same bitter tone that Edward spoke with was to look upon the broken Elric family, "And there'd be no way Ed would even-."

"If all these people are in the Gate, I wonder if our mom is there too," his voice sounded lost in a dream, "we didn't realize it back then, but we did try and ask the Gate for her."

Where Edward would outright initiate a change of topic with the drop of a gauntlet, Alphonse had the magic of changing trains of thought with the breeze of a sweeping statement. Mere seconds passed before a strong, left hand came down over Alphonse's slight mess of golden-brown hair.

"Don't you think it's time for you to let the memory of your mother rest in peace?" Izumi realized: this was something that needed to be laid to rest before any mentions of the estranged father could be brought into the light. In the time since she'd laid vicious fists into two boys who'd gone against everything she'd tried to reinforce, it had been something Izumi had firmly believed haunted them, no matter how much they achieved or how far they progressed.

Her hand slid from his hair, coming to rest on the young Elric's shoulder, "Ed couldn't let go of your mother even after everything was said and done, and you would follow in stride."

Not many children are given the opportunity to re-do a part of their life, and because Alphonse had been given that rare opportunity, Izumi wished to ensure something better. The beauty of a child that no longer had the memories of years of hardship fermenting the pain of a lost loved one was enough to tell her that her words were no longer too late in coming.

"I know that you can do better than that."

After all, they were the only two children she could consider 'her own'. With Alphonse, there came times, now and then, when she could treat him as such.

"I'd be too ashamed to see my mom again."

And there came times, now and then, when he would respond.

"I think she's happier when I leave the wildflowers at her grave and I tell her I love her."

In the end, he'd end up reminding her that the second trip down the road paved by an irreparable mistake had started out nothing like the first.

* * *

Nothing startled it and nothing interrupted it, the empty existence of sleep simply faded away. There was a nice, warm imprint in the mattress where he lay and a warm bubble within the comforter that he slept beneath, Ed didn't particularly feel the urge to move out from it. He lay, silent and empty headed for nearly 20 minutes before finally the realization hit him that he was in a foreign house. Yes, he wasn't in his own bed. Yes, he wasn't in his German home. Despite realizing these things, he felt somewhat foolish that it had taken him that long to realize he was intruding on someone's space.

Where was he again? How long had he been there? And who put the wool sock on his foot? Where'd the blue sweater he had on come from? …Who's pants did he have on?

Ed quickly found himself sitting up in the bed amidst a slowly growing mountain of questions.

Through the tangled mess of hair falling down his back, Ed gave a lengthy scratch of his neck, all the while squeezing his eyes in hopes of removing the sleep that clouded them over. Fighting through another yawn, Ed gave up on his stay in the odd location and picked up his crutch from the side of the bed.

Oh, this sock was warm, he couldn't feel the chill in the floorboards. For the life of him, once October came along neither he nor his father could manage to keep the floor in their German home warm.

The best Ed could deduce for a time of day was sometime after the sun had risen and sometime before it began setting. Balanced with his crutch, he peered out into the hallway. A strong, white light lit the hall, as well as the room he'd exited; it was natural light from outside, but not quite sunlight.

Ed wrinkled his brow and moved towards the stairwell at the end of the hall.

The house was perfectly quiet, there wasn't a voice to be heard within the walls; Edward was the only interruption of this bright silence as he made his way slowly down the stairs. As delicately as possible, Ed moved from the stairs to the brightened hall at the front of the Hyland home. From where he stood he could peer into the living room, but there was no one to be seen.

With a quirky turn of his confused frown, Ed focused his attention to the lack of footwear on the front entrance mat. His shoe was there, but Winry's and his father's were not. With a wrinkle to his nose, Ed approached the front entrance. The glow from outside coming in through the thin window above the door distracted him from the other thoughts clouding his mind. Curiously raising an eyebrow, Ed paused a moment once realizing that none of the locks on the door had been done.

Ed winced at first as he opened the door, squinting into the bright world that lay dormant beyond the front porch of the home.

The world lay before him, wiped of all its imperfections. A thick, white blanket of freshly fallen snow glowed brighter than the sun, which attempted to light the world from a blue crack in the overcast, snowing sky. The world was smooth, pure, and placed at ease until man returned to scar the perfection.

And the snow continued to fall; plump snowflakes tumbled down from the sky without the curse of wind to distort their decent. The bite of winter's chill lay dormant beneath the growing white bed. For the length of time he stood at the opened door, there had been, and continued to be, no sound.

It was serene. Where was he again?

Ed's attention flickered away as he slipped the socked foot into his shoe. Without disturbing the peace in the world around him, Edward stepped out onto the snow-covered porch and with wide, childish eyes, he took in the surroundings.

He was wrong, because there was noise, faint noise of the world existing; snow slipping from fence posts and tree branches, the birds venturing out into the fresh powder, and the occasional weak gust of wind that altered the course of the falling flakes. Squinting, Ed looked up to the grayish, overcast sky and watched without a word as the heavens buried the world around him.

_Do it._

The gentle touch of the chilled snowflake on his cheeks kind of tickled as each melted.

_Do it…!_

A mused curl came to the corner of his mouth and he stuck out his tongue to see how many…

He quickly stopped when he heard someone giggle from the kitchen window. His attention wasn't quick enough to spy the culprit disappearing behind the curtains, but knew the voice that quickly moved to the open door.

"How many did you catch?"

How embarrassing. Ed's head dropped and he slowly shook it with the hope he wasn't flushed with embarassment.

"Three? Four?" Patti chewed on her lower lip as she stood in the doorway of her home, "Margaret says that some snowflakes taste like little pieces of ice cream."

"Very funny…" his head continued to shake as he peered over his shoulder, "I wasn't catching snowflakes, I was yawning."

"Oh," the young woman began to giggle, "okay, if that's what it was."

"It was!"

"I never said I didn't believe you!" her tone deliberately mocked him, they both realized it, and Patti's hand quickly shot out between them to deflect the conversation, "bun?"

Adjusting over his crutch and shaking the snow from his hair, Ed took the dinner bun from her, "Thanks…"

As quickly as he snatched the bun, Edward turned away to stare off into the abyss of white, a far better alternative than looking back and have her continue to giggle at him. The soft, sweet voice insisted on sweeping over him.

"It looks quite pretty this morning, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Ed slowly let his teeth sink into the soft bun, "What time is it?"

"10:30," came the reply of the female voice standing in his shadow.

Ed paused, raising an eyebrow before swallowing his bite, "In the morning?"

"Certainly not at night…"

His face contorted again, realizing how foolish he'd just sounded. Again he stood silent upon the top of the porch step, trying hard to focus on what was glowing before his eyes and not what stood behind him.

Ed wanted to look over his shoulder, the desire made him itch, but the longer he remained silent, the greater the chance that she would go back into the kitchen. Was she going to shut the door? If she shut the door to keep the cold air out then he would know she had gone inside, or did she intend to leave the door open like he had and just walk away?

"Edward I'm going t-"

"Did my dad and Wi-"

The simultaneous statements came to an abrupt halt, both stopping not only their speech but movement as well, waiting for the other to go first.

Ed wanted to sigh in spite of himself. He had tried time and time again to hold a conversation with her but he'd always found himself with a million scripted things to bring up and nothing to actually say. It was rarely a natural conversation.

"Did my dad and Winry stay over last night?"

"Your father left with Charles, but he asked Winry to spend the night…"

Edward's eyes flickered up into the grey and white ceiling that floated down around him. He listened as she shifted against the doorframe.

"They were both up fairly early and Winry took Margaret out back to the gazebo about half an hour ago. Did they wake you?"

"No… no," he gave a light shake of his head, "nothing woke me."

The silence crept up between them once more. This time Patricia was unable to hold silent; sliding backwards, closer to the warmth within the house, her fingernails danced over the doorknob of the wide-open entrance.

"Would you like to come back inside?"

Again he shrugged, "I'm alright."

"Do you want me to bring you your scarf?"

She was trying so hard to find some platform for a social conversation with him, and all Edward could read was the undertone of unease in her voice which only made it harder to reply, "It's okay, Patti."

Exhaling quickly, she began chewing on the corner of her lower lip again, "If you don't bundle up, you'll catch pneumonia."

"… it's not cold enough out here to catch pneumonia."

The woman's eyebrow rose, once again Ed gave her reason to pause. This was perplexing; the conversation had developed into the type of conversation she carried on with her daughter day in and day out. Wasn't Edward just a little too old to sound so much like her child?

'_If you don't wear your mittens, you'll catch cold.'  
'But I don't like my mittens.'_

'If you eat any more of that, you'll get sick.'  
'But it tastes good.'

'If you sit like that, people will think you have no manners.'  
'But it's comfortable.'

So, when mother's wisdom fails, there was the trump card.

"If you don't bundle up, you'll catch pneumonia again and your father will be furious."

"Patti…"

She was taken aback by how quickly Ed turned over his shoulder. His gaze cast downward to the impressions he'd left in the layer of snow on the doorstep. This time, it was only Edward who carried the silence between them, and he finally lifted his eyes. Patricia's shoulders relaxed, reading no aggression in his eyes to the stern warning she'd given. Finally, Edward snorted in jest.

"If that happens, he'd kill me long before the pneumonia would."

The woman's brown eyes flickered skyward for a moment. Patricia allowed herself to become lost in a thought before spinning on her heels and marching back inside, "Then I'll get your jacket too."

"What?" Ed's jaw fell open in confusion. He quickly wrinkled his nose in protest and called back inside, "The scarf will do Patti, I don't need the whole jacket!"

"Alright!" the voice chirped back at him.

Wait a minute, had she just…?

Ed's eyes narrowed as he peered back inside the house, trying to achieve the impossible and peer around the corner Patricia had disappeared behind. Slowly he turned away, moving around to face a world that had its impurities buried beneath a clean slate of snow. This corner of the world would enjoy its moment of tranquility until the first pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle felt brave enough to leave an imprint. Some part of Edward hoped those inevitable events would never come.

The owner of a powerful pair of golden eyes looked up into the sky softly drifting down around him and debated sticking his tongue out once more.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Just a reminder, the time on the AU side of the Gate moves faster than the other side (I write it at a 3:1 ratio). Brigitte's awareness of the time of year is skewed - she thinks it's still September when it's now November in Europe and May/June in Amestris.


	22. Upon the Doorstep of Revolution

Some nights, _when I sleep, I can hear that sound. That baby._

She screams at me, incoherently, from beyond a white, painful light.

If I think about it, my body burns. It's like déjà vu, only I'm not sure what it is that I'm supposed to be remembering.

Once in a while I can place that feeling somewhere between the church hall and that bedroom.

Some afternoons, _when I'm frustrated with the heat and the English language, I think about it too much. About how he told me not to go there, and I went anyways._

Occasionally, after thinking about that, I remember hearing that old man's voice echo in the hall. I know I meant to look at him, but I can't remember if I did or not.

Yet…

I do remember waking up on the floor with some little girl looking over me. For the first few moments she looked at me, I thought she was terrified of me. I think I ended up being terrified of her.

She clapped her hands and things happened; things that I can't explain and have never seen before. It's like that alchemy Mr. Elric spoke about, but alchemy is impossible.

Some times _I tell myself that Mom was wrong, the English are nicer than she said they were._

Both Mr. Elric and these people are English.

And these people aren't that bad and I hope they let me go home some day. I can't run away because I don't know where I'd go, so I figure, if I do what they ask, then maybe I'll get home sooner. It's not as though they're hurting me, or abusing me, or mistreating me. I get food, clothing, water, and shelter; lots of it – I should be thankful for that.

Whatever the rest of cruel Europe might has convinced themselves my Germany is, I'll have them know that I'm different than what they think of me.

Some day, _maybe that'll do me some good._

* * *

**Chapter 73 – Upon the Doorstep of Revolution **

"Edward!" the voice bellowed from another room, "answer the phone."

He poked his head out of Dr. Wilson's kitchen. With the 10am coffee in hand, narrow, gold slits darted up and down the hall, searching for the direction the sudden incurrence of sound came from, "Why do I have to answer your phone?"

"Because it's ringing!" the doctor's voice hollered once more, "hurry before they hang up."

Stumbling out into the hall, crutch beneath his arm, Ed stomped his way towards the never-ending telephone bell, "This isn't my house, what the hell am I supposed to say?"

"I'm quite sure 'Hello' would be sufficient."

Ed stopped in his tracks, suddenly tempted to let the phone ring until it died.

From his study at the top of the stairwell, Dr. Wilson once again tossed his head out the door, "EDWARD."

"HOLY SHIT, I'LL GET IT!"

Standing within Dr. Wilson's main study as he bellowed the commands, Winry's expression fell, watching uneasily as the doctor turned back into the room and approached her. Winry'd concluded long ago that this man and Edward couldn't exist twenty minutes in the other's vicinity without some sort of clash, be it a glance, a quip, a shot; only the doctor didn't outwardly react as flamboyantly as Ed did.

But the yelling was neither here nor there, and Winry hooked the tip of her screwdriver in place. With the firm jerk of her wrist, she put the final twist in the ankle of the prosthetic leg she'd fought with for weeks.

She'd found it hard not to refer to any prosthesis as AutoMail since she'd been in the English speaking environment. She was lucky that in Germany; no one knew what she was talking about when she'd naturally refer to artificial limbs as 'AutoMail', and in the case of Ed's leg, 'temporary devices' or 'AutoMail substitutes'. Though she'd initially been focused on creating a more durable arm for him, as events unfolded she'd changed the course of her constructive urges and opted to create a high-end 'temp-leg, rather than paying an outrageous amount for a domestic prosthesis. She was convinced that she could create something more durable at a far lesser cost.

In the recent days she'd begun to harbor a sinful little secret; she had not expected it and couldn't help but enjoy it, but the attention she'd begun to receive for her archaic device tickled her pink. She'd shown it to the Hylands, but it was Dr. Wilson who was up in arms over the leg. The man had even gone so far as to call several of his colleagues over to examine her work, something Winry was more than willing to discuss with anyone who'd listen.

'_Just you wait until you see Ed's AutoMail arm when I'm done with it,'_ she thought, feverishly struggling against divulging what was to come.

She was somewhat disappointed that Ed said he was fine with her not creating a truly AutoMail leg for him. There had never been any question that he'd wanted the functional arm for his upper body, but she'd hoped to challenge the leg as well. If that was not to be the case, she'd present him with the next best thing a seventeen-year-old mechanic had to offer with only substandard parts available.

Taking the leg by the ankle, Winry smirked and picked it up off the mat on the floor. Her hair fell over the old, dusty blue dress shirt Hohenheim had picked from a thrift store for her to work in. Swinging her ponytail over her shoulder, Winry straightened her back and held it out proudly before the doctor of the house, "It'll be better than anything he's had since he started staying with his dad."

"Good lord child," Dr. Wilson chomped down on his pipe stem, "let me see that."

"He's going to be so much more comfortable with this," Winry kept a protective grip on the prosthetic , allowing the doctor to play with the ankle, "with this he's going to have so much better movement from the moment he steps down until he pushes off again. The way I've wound the ankle… there and there… will let him have a bit smoother roll-over to mid-stance plus it'll give a bit of cushioning to the foot and be more comfortable. The coils there help levy control between roll-over to forefoot; I was able to wind the coils tight enough that I really didn't have to do much to the spring's stiffness to facilitate it."

Without realizing it, Winry had left the doctor in her dust.

"It's great that it works like this, I can't believe I got it to turn out so well," she just couldn't help herself, and the beaming grin slapped onto her face again. It was hard to be modest when she'd not only surprised herself, but had far exceeded the level of expectation among 'the professionals'.

"That, Miss. Rockbell…" the doctor let the young woman have her creation back, "is a work of art. I am astonished to say the least. I have seen some fine work done for transfemoral amputees, but watching you fly through the construction with such ease has left me in awe. I have contemporaries who've been working their whole lives for a success like this."

"Are you kidding me? This was a lot harder than it looked," the girl squeaked, "you can't call this 'easy' and it's defiantly not as good as it could be. It'll at least do the trick; I can't wait for him to try it on!"

"Who's trying what on?" Edward's voice pushed into the room from the top of the stairs.

Winry's eyes flew wide, beaming at Ed as he approached, "You are! I finished it!"

"Great," Edward gave his head a shake, pulling his crutch-aided self into the room.

The doctor slid the pipe from his lips, tapping the ashes into a tray at the corner of his desk, "Did you get the telephone like I asked you to?"

Plunking himself down on a wooden stool in the room, Ed rolled his eyes; his voice dripping with distain, "Yes sir, I did."

"Did you say 'hello' like I asked you to?"

"Yup," Ed lifted his head high, the trail ends of a sneer catching in his lips, "I said 'Hallo! Vielen Dank für Ihren Anruf!' and they hung up."

Winry wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh or smack Edward on the back of the head with his new leg. More concerning than making that choice was the sudden aura of annoyance that emanated from Doctor Wilson. She watched in relative silence, leg cradled in her arms, as the doctor slid his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other and walked out of the room without a word to either of them.

Watching the doctor vanish down the tight flight of stairs, Edward snorted and stretched out his tired right leg.

"Ed," Winry slipped a hand to her hip as she handed the leg over to him, "you didn't honestly…"

"Huh?" he cocked an eyebrow, looking up at her with a surprisingly blank expression.

"I-", her voice caught; the hand on her hip slipped up to her chest and Winry folded her arms, releasing an exaggerated sigh, "never mind."

A curl found its way into the corner of the darker blonde's mouth, deliberately allowing her comment to blow right by him. Reaching out, Edward hooked his index and middle fingers around the handle bar of his crutch and pulled it around en? display, "Please tell me I came up here to hear you say I can toss this away?"

"How about just put it in the closet?" Winry shook the previous conversation from her mind and sat down on her knees in front of him.

Letting the crutch fall from his fingertips with a clatter, Ed's left hand took hold of the wooden calf of the artificial limb. Reaching out, Winry gripped the cuff of the prosthetic and held it steady as he examined the knee joint, "It moves really well, no wonder Charles was all over it this morning."

"You're going to have to manually lock the joint yourself if you're ever driving or standing for long periods, you don't want it to collapse on you suddenly. I wanted to see if a slight hyperextension of the knee would lock the joint but then I realized that it was too easy to hyperextend, especially if you're walking fast… you'd end up falling over," shuffling on her knees to his side, she put her finger over a deliberate imperfection in the back of the leg, "you can feel the notch just above the back of the knee, there's a pin you put in it. The knee joint itself only has a 90-degree flexation angle. I really wanted at least 100 but that wasn't happening. And there was no way I was getting in any shock absorption so there's extra padding in the cuff, hopefully it'll help."

"That's fine, it can't be any worse than the last one," Ed scratched his cheek, recalling how his left leg stump swelled up after extended and continuous walking.

"I improvised all over the place," tempted to throw her arms up into the air, Winry shook her head, entangled in her element, "Ed, AutoMail technology is so much simpler, I had to completely re-think how I was going to approach this. In AutoMail, the mechanics and wiring pick up on the myoelectric signals and you don't have to fight so hard aligning the pressure, tension, weight disbursement, strength and everything else. There's no user or muscle control in a traditional leg and I haven't made one in years, not to mention I couldn't even find half the right parts to begin with. I can't remember struggling so much with the tension in a single-axis rotary like that in all my years as an AutoMail mechanic!"

"Winry…" Ed paused as he caught her attention, somewhat hesitant, "it's better than the crutch."

The response was satisfactory, and Winry rose to her feet with a huff directed not at him, but to the scope of the daunting situation she had every intention of tackling next: his arm, "You know, I brought up 'myoelectric signal' when Dr. Wilson's friends were around, and no one knew what it was. This poor society."

"Its an electric signal that controls muscle movement in the nervous system."

"Thank you!" Winry raised her hands for Hohenheim, who was suddenly standing in the doorway of the office study, a grin on his face as he threw a chuckle at the heir to the Rockbell family business.

Ed's eyes narrowed curiously, eyeing his father in the doorway; he watched as the old man's interest shifted from Winry to him.

"Edward…"

His head tilted.

The old man's left eyebrow rose, "Do you know the reason behind Charles telling me that I'm supposed to lecture you about 'telephone manners'?"

Resting the leg in his lap, Ed wrinkled his brow and took a quick, annoyed glance around the room, "What kind of shit is he telling you this time?"

Straightening the collar of his dress shirt, Hohenheim leaned his shoulder into the doorframe, "Well, just after I finished with the phone call downstairs he came into the room and told me to 'deal with your telephone etiquette' because he'd had it up to 'here' with you this week."

Edward's expression remained stone cold and unimpressed, catching the sudden quirk of his father's eyebrow and recognizing the aura slowly flaring up around Winry at his side, "You know what dad, he's your friend. Considering you were the one who answered the phone, maybe you should ask him what he's going on about."

Having not honestly expected any answer other than the one he received, Hohenheim shrugged, reluctantly satisfied with the response. What he wasn't so reluctant to accept was the grossly unimpressed look that had fallen over Winry. His face twisted curiously as the girl stiffly exhaled and rolled her eyes with the shake of her head.

Still not noticing any hint of reaction towards her behaviour on Edward's part, Hohenheim allowed his reaction to soften, cautiously speaking, "… Did I miss something?"

The question was all Winry needed to throw her two cents onto the floor, "Your son is going to be held responsible when the roof comes crashing down around us!"

Ed finally reacted, "I'm what?"

His eyes flew wide, eyeing Winry's finger that was suddenly pointing in his face, "Put your leg on and go for a long, long walk outside before you drive everyone insane!"

"Well you need to get out of the room," Ed's arm swung towards the door, "I have to take my pants off to put this on, and that's not going to happen with an audience!"

She hadn't needed his prompting to make her exit. A curl found its way onto Edward's cheek by the time Winry had made it to the door; his father was already well down the hall, a hand to his slowly shaking head.

* * *

The aging creak of the cupboard door, the hungry sound of a mug touching the counter and the lazy sweep of footsteps across the hardwood floor raged with volume at quarter past five in the morning. No amount of care could change that within a silent night. A cup of coffee had been the goal upon entering the kitchen, but a cold mug of water had been the option Mustang abdicated for. As it was, the water was far less intrusive than the noise and effort required for the first pot of morning coffee; he didn't want to disturb her.

Mustang never made it out of the kitchen; he stopped in the red mist brought on by the first rays of sunlight sneaking over the horizon. Izumi still sat at the wooden table, her head propped up in her left hand. Scattered across the table was a mess of paperwork. Pencil strokes depicted formulas, clearly alchemical, and rested upon the table as the base for three photographs that sat atop the pile. In the previous day's discussions, those three images had become momentarily inconsequential.

Curiously, he stepped up to the table's edge and with the smooth sweep of his hand, pulled one of many hastily scratched formula sheets towards himself. Even with his years of expertise in the alchemy field, Izumi's work was something to behold. Placing the cup down with barely a sound, his hands held tight to the table's edge as he tried to follow his way around the mismanaged formula.

The officer's lips slowly parted, "What on…"

"It's incomplete."

Mustang raised his eye towards the origins of a groggy voice.

Izumi let the hand that had held her up drop to the tabletop with a dull thud; with an emphatic yawn she slid another sheet towards the Brigadier General, "This has a sounder theorem on it."

Taking the new sheet of paper, Mustang eye narrowed at a piece far more convoluted than the last, "What were you doing?"

"Those three photographs your Lieutenant Havoc had developed from Brigitte's camera," another yawn momentarily interrupted Izumi, stretching her arms out across the table as she did so, "I can't figure out what that circle was meant to accomplish."

Mustang gave a shake of his head, snatching up a photograph lying atop the pile, "It wouldn't accomplish anything. It doesn't even warrant the right to be called a transmutation circle as far as I'm concerned," the photograph swept down to the tabletop from Roy's fingers, "this is why amateurs get hurt when they play with complex alchemy, that 'floor etching' would rebound on any alchemist long before it would come close to doing any good."

Pushing up from her seat, Izumi gripped the table as she stretched out her back; sore from being hunched over and half asleep for the last few hours, "It could tear someone apart."

"That would be an understatement," slipping his fingers into the water mug's rings, Mustang reconsidered the option of a morning coffee.

"What I'd like to know is…" Izumi's arms slowly folded across her chest as the man slowly made his way back to the kitchen sink, "from looking at that 'floor etching', what do you suppose was that circle's original purpose?"

With the flick of his right wrist, the water faucet was on. Without missing a step, Mustang snatched a pot from one of the cupboards and slipped it under the running water, "I have no idea what something like that was meant to have been used for."

From the menagerie upon the table, Izumi's thin index finger slipped out the pen she'd molded to her hand for the greater part of the previous evening. Lightly, she tapped the fine end against the table top, "What if it wasn't supposed to be used for anything?"

The faucet squeaked as Roy stopped the water flow, "It's a decoration, as I said."

Slipping the photograph between her index and middle fingers, Izumi held up the 4 x 6 photograph for Mustang to see, the luminosity of the early morning hour barely strong enough for the officer to make the image out, "What if this isn't _meant_ to aid the transmutation of anything. What if it's deliberately constructed to degrade into a rebound?"

The pot of water landed with a much greater clatter on the stove element than Mustang had intended, "I assume you realize how dangerous that is? No person in his or her right mind would construct something that would perform that way and then etch it into the floor. The entire floor."

"Yet, that's what this circle does."

The thought made Izumi uneasy, though not as outwardly uncomfortable as with Mustang. Any attempt at an alchemical reaction in the vicinity would trigger it, any unfortunate soul that didn't realize what it was would fall victim to it; however, not any artist could have possibly manufactured it. Sometime between dusk and the first peak of dawn, Izumi deduced the circle's balance was not simply a miscalculation; it was a sequence of miscalculations. Each disruption had a corresponding event that seemingly created another disruption or redistribution within the circle, deliberately offsetting the delicate balance required to complete any given transmutation and causing the cascading transmutation breakdown.

Mustang's fingers hung onto the curved, black handle of the pot of water upon the stove, looking back into a set of eyes that had beaten sleep into submission and gazed upon him with inarguable ferocity.

"Are you certain?"

"You're right, it doesn't deserve the right to be called a 'transmutation circle', but it's masquerading as a glorified one. Even the most basic hexagram is balanced, but the more lines you add for complexity the greater assurances you need that all of the elements in your equation are balanced," Izumi flicked the photograph back to the tabletop, turning away from Mustang as she cast a harsh gaze of the material she'd dissected until the wee hours of the morning, "Anyone with half decent training would look at this and shiver. The power flow starts and never finishes because of power divergence; it was built to rebound. It looks disorganized, but once I took it apart, it was anything but that."

Giving a flick of the switch to the stovetop element, Mustang stepped up alongside Izumi. His forearms came to rest of the high back of a wooden chair and the officer leaned into the table, "Can you hazard a guess as to why?"

Izumi released a hefty sigh, "I have no idea. There are easier ways to kill yourself."

"Indeed," stepping away again, Mustang slid his way back to the pot upon the wood burning stove element.

Izumi watched from the corner of her eye as the officer walked off. Her hand came up and swept over her face, a thumb and finger pushing into her eyes to massage the soreness brought on by an evening of confusion and frustration. She had expected, but never heard, the sound of cloth-covered fingers igniting the element. Blinded by her own hand, Izumi's ears instead picked up the sound of heavy feet thundering along the wooden floor towards her. Her hand fell away from her face with enough time to catch the aggressive look flooding into Mustang's eyes as he dropped his cup down on the table.

"Is our theory that Brigitte is from 'beyond the Gate' correct?"

Izumi gave the officer a slow nod.

"If something like that is so asinine on this 'side' of the Gate, why would someone construct it on the other? Wouldn't it be as foolish?"

Sitting back in the chair, Izumi's exhaustion burdened concentration latched onto the intensity growing within Mustang.

"And what in the world is a child doing taking a picture of it?" from within the pile of paperwork, Roy withdrew the other two photographs that had kept Izumi up for so much of the night, "in a room like that and with a camera of that age she'd need a manual flash; potassium chloride and magnesium powder would work the easiest. The circle causes enough problems on its own, but if you throw in an uncalculated element like magnesium and who knows what might happen. Why wouldn't anyone have stopped her from taking photographs? Wouldn't it be too dangerous?"

What would…?  
How could…?  
Shouldn't this…?  
Why is it…?

Izumi wished for a fresh mind to understand why so much nonsense surrounded the situation. It wasn't as though the alchemy made no sense; the alchemy, although egregiously bastardized, ultimately made mathematical sense, it was the common sense that refused to surface at any point. The 'whys' and the 'hows' were questions that demanded logical answers, not open ended speculation into an unknown person or society's mindset. The 'maybe' clause seemed to attach to every possible answer, as well as an answer as nonsensical as any she'd asked herself thus far.

"Maybe no one perceives it as a danger?"

Mustang hesitated before answering, "That's absurd."

"No," Izumi corrected him, snapping up one of the photographs, "this is absurd."

Reaching out, Mustang took the image from Izumi's hand, gingerly holding a picture that had captured another time. Without a word, Izumi stood up from her seat and gave a withering exhale; her hands swept over her hair and she slowly pulled herself away from the table. In her place, Roy sat down; his arm slung over the back of the chair and the image falling from his fingertips into the paperwork before him. The craving for an early morning coffee had soon been lost as he tried to wrap his mind around the notions that had sent the alchemy teacher down the hall to find a bed upon which she could rest her head.

* * *

It was a two way rush. As Edward pushed open the door he could feel the heat escaping and blowing past his body. In turn, the warmth beyond the door was accosted by the outdoor's chill. Not wanting to disturb the balance any longer, Ed quickly slipped inside, setting off the perky jingle of door chimes that danced near the ceiling. He looked up almost sheepishly at the noise; the unnoticed entrance he planned on making had been thwarted.

"Good evening, Sir."

The Elric's golden eyes drifted over to the heavily set man, grinning at him heartily through his beard, "The same to you."

"Is there something I can help you with before I close up shop?"

Ed opened his mouth to speak but found himself cut off by the first cuckoo clock to announce that five o'clock had arrived. The walls on each side of him rose above him, decorated by some of Europe's finest time telling instruments. The bird's music-box song, the high bell chime, and the deep gong of each handcrafted clock, grandfather and miniature, joined the 5PM choir in gleeful disarray. Unable to intrude into the mismanaged sound, Edward strode across the muddied floor, soiled by the boots of every winter-ravaged soul that had walked through the shop.

His head held up a little higher than normal as the clatter faded, he had not been able to walk so comfortably, so fluidly, and so powerfully since his last lifetime.

"Is Benjamin here?"

The final reminder of time slipped away; the tiny doors of the chirping clocks snapped shut as each crafted bird vanished for another half hour.

"Oh goodness," the man's thick lips fell downwards, his voice reclaiming the space where the declaration of time had momentarily occupied, "Ben hasn't worked here in ages."

Ed's hand slipped into his jacket pocket, brow knitting into a tight frown, "Dammit. Do you know if he's at another shop in the city?"

The puffy white beard swayed as the man shook his head, "Benjamin took his family out of town for some reason or t'other. I can't say that I recall what for. He left me to look after his shop and I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since."

"Shit," Ed's nose wrinkled as he momentarily grit his teeth.

Slowly folding a thick pair of arms across his wide chest, the shopkeeper couldn't help his curiosity and pried a little further, "Were you looking for Benjamin himself, or his craftsmanship skills?"

It was all the prompting Ed needed to elaborate, "My father commissioned Ben to craft a watch for him about four years ago," his hand moved swiftly; dipping his hand into the jacket's pocket, Ed's thumb slipped into the loop at the end of a silver chain and produced a watch that carried a nostalgic burden, "It's been loosing time for the last few months and I haven't been able to use it. I just wanted to have it adjusted so I didn't have to reset it every second day."

The man's hearty laugh bubbled up and the keeper's stance relaxed as the Elric placed the bottom edge of his silver watch down upon the counter top, "I'm certain I can look after Benjamin's handy work for you, I've done it for many before." The old man waited until the young man allowed the forged keepsake to slip from his gloved fingertips.

Ed watched as the man treated the silver shell of the watch to a visual inspection and listened as he quickly gave an impressive whistle, "This is some fine silver and engraving young man. Definitely one of Ben's better works."

With a casual shrug of his shoulders, Ed glanced back towards the door, "My father said he was the best in town, that's why it was done through him."

The vibrant golden eyes snapped back to the counter upon hearing the watch lid flip open. He'd made the sharp reaction upon instinct but stopped himself before speaking. Watching without a word, Ed relaxed his shoulders as the man continued the inspection, knowing he would not be asked any question about the date on the lid… since he hadn't etched one into it.

"Yes, in his day, Benjamin was one of the best this side of the city had to offer," reaching beneath his counter, the caretaker of the watch and clock shop produced a receipt booklet and a sheet of carbon paper then dropped it onto his countertop, "If I can get your name, I'll leave you with a ticket."

"Edward Elric," he shifted once more glance back towards the door.

"Alright Mr. Elric, you can probably pick it up later in the afternoon tomorrow," emphatically stabbing the paper at his final pen stroke, the burly man handed the blonde a white receipt, "I have a few more knickknacks that need tinkering with beforehand but it should be finished by the end of the day."

A curl came to the corner of his lips and Ed once again shrugged, "That's fine, take your time," he gave a firm yank of his jacket collar and with his copy of the receipt in hand, he turned towards the door, "if I'm not by tomorrow I'll defiantly be by the following morning."

This time, no five o'clock chorus would serenade his path to and from the door. Once more, Edward took his strides towards the door; it was a short walk that took forever.

He wanted to run out the door.

Dig his toes in and run.

No particular reason for it, he simply wanted to do it.

It had been years since he'd been able to run without falling apart in some manner. His leg stump would blister or a rash would fester, joints would come loose or couldn't take the pounding, hell once when he'd been scrambling the bloody thing popped right off and he'd found himself face first on the cement walkway. And all this came from a State Alchemist who used to wander around Amestris by train and foot, his new constraints frustrated him endlessly.

Though, if he injured Winry's leg in any way, she'd kill him.

If he couldn't bring himself to run, then he could stride. There was an unnatural compensation he used to have to make for his body with other devices; he'd once found himself walking with a slight limp, hip-hike, although mostly it was merely cautious care and it slowed him down.

Winry's leg was imperfect, that was for certain, but even if he couldn't feel the power in the tips of artificial toes, he certainly knew he moved forward with it. It was a type of artificial, natural motion he never believed he would find beyond the Gate.

Evidently, it had found him.

Instead of running out the door, he stopped; his golden eyes catching the outline of a figure only seconds before it burst through the door with the loud scream of entrance bells to interrogate him.

"What are you doing in here?" bundled tightly in all the winter accessories she'd been able to find, Winry held the door open wide as the breeze blew shavings of snow off her shoulders, "You're supposed to be picking up spices."

Ed slipped the receipt into his pocket and swept his hand to the left-side wall as he once again approached her, "What? You don't want a cuckoo clock?"

It was probably the most emphatic 'no' he'd heard from her in weeks. Pushing past her with the shake of his head, Ed stepped out into the chilly streets behind her and wiggled around to produce the hat from his right pocket.

"Well that's good, because neither do I," he pulled the toque down, half crooked over his head before he continued to walk along the snow covered side walk, away from the expression that questioned his sanity, "last thing I need is some noisy bird-in-a-box waking me up at three in the morning."

* * *

The soft, smooth flesh of Nina's chin rested in the bed her arms created upon the dark, oak desk. Her socked feet were hidden away, tucked beneath her on the velvet covered, four-legged chair while her wide, blue eyes watched the phone came to rest with a clatter upon its cradle. She shifted her childish eyes, glancing between the two men within her 'adopted' father's office. Earlier, the concern in their voices echoed off the walls in this vast, uncluttered space of the prime minister's office.

"It's been three days since I first tried reaching their number. I can't tell you how many days it might have gone unanswered before that," the prime minister swept his hands over his chin.

His companion, General Hakuro, sighed, his arms folding across his firmly pressed uniform, "I can investigate if you want. I don't know enough about the custody paperwork involved with Mrs. Hughes and Alphonse to tell you if she had authority to go out of town with him or not."

Mitchell shook his head, "I can't imagine she'd be able to do that for more than a 24-hour period without having to inform someone in Child and Custody Services."

Nina's eyes flickered up to Hakuro as the man gave a slow nod in agreement, "I'll check with the department as well as with Lt. Colonel Armstrong, I remember something about one of the secretaries under him having ties to the Hughes family, she may know if they've had to head out of town on short notice."

"Armstrong…" tapping his pencil against the polished desk surface, Mitchell's gaze trailed towards the drape-sealed window that looked out upon the southern half of the government complex, "I think he was around for Brigitte's reunion with her mother. Wasn't that man part of the State Alchemist regime?"

"He was," catching Nina's gaze from the corner of his eye, he flashed a smile for the child as she sunk back into her arms.

The end of Mitchell's pen continued to fly off the desk, "As was Brigadier General Mustang."

Hakuro's brow rose curiously, "Yes, Sir."

Leaning back in his chair, Mitchell sighed, looking to dispel a flake of stress bearing down on his shoulders, "Speaking of that office, have you dealt with that officer miss-managing the organization in Mustang's division?"

"Ah," Hakuro rolled his shoulders, stiffening his posture, "after I'd consulted with Lt. Colonel Armstrong about the issue I decided to give Lt. Havoc a grace period to clean up his management of the section. Armstrong was quite adamant that the workload may have been too much for the Lieutenant while Major Hawkeye and the Brigadier General were on leave."

"Is Brigadier General Mustang a friend of Elysia's?" Nina perked up; gazing into her 'fathers' eyes, she pulled her face up from her arms.

After the seconds of uncertain delay on Mitchell's part, it was Hakuro who answered the child's question, "Brigadier General Mustang was a close colleague of Elysia's father."

"Oh…" Nina nodded, her eyes looking to the chandelier dangling above the center of the office, "cause I think Elysia or her mom mentioned him before. Maybe when me and Aisa bumped into them that day Brigitte had to leave… or… oh no, that's not it…"

Mitchell's brow tightened as the child slowly spoke as she carefully placed a scene together for her listeners.

"I met him when Brigitte got all upset when we were walking in the military building a while back. Al and Brigitte went away with him somewhere and we went downstairs to wait. Elysia's mom said it was alright to let him look after them for a little bit because he was a friend of hers."

The pencil the prime minister had tapped so vigorously on his desk found its way into the menagerie of pens in the top drawer of his desk, "Hakuro, a while back I was perused by Mustang's office for full control of the market bombing incident where Alphonse and his companion were found. I had to tell his office three times that the children were not an issue within their jurisdiction. If he has relationships with the Hughes family and is that concerned with the child's welfare, he may have some insight into their where abouts."

"Mustang's on leave at the moment," Hakuro's words stalled for a brief, hesitant moment as he caught an unsettling glance from one of the few men above him, "but I can recall him if you wish."

"Do that," Mitchell pushed up from his leather chair, straightening his vest as he moved to Nina. Smiling down at the girl, he gently placed a kiss on her forehead as he slid his arms around her waist and removed her from the chair she'd claimed.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you today where Elysia and Alphonse are, but we'll find out soon enough, then everyone can have lunch together again, alright?" the man's hands swept around, pulling the child's pigtails over her shoulders.

Nina giggled once again, a hand cupping her mouth to muffle the sound as Mitchell took her by the other and led her to the general, "But for now, I'm sure General Hakuro's family is looking forward to having us over for dinner again."

The impish fingers changed possession as Hakuro gently took the hand his compatriot offered him, "My wife is making roast beef for everyone tonight."

"That sounds good," Nina grinned up at him.

Hakuro could only smile as he turned with her towards the door, "My wife and I will take Nina out to our place for the evening. You'll be joining us around six?"

"Between five and six, no later," the prime minister moved back to his desk.

"Papa?"

The child's voice froze the man; it was not the delicate sound that immobilized him, but the word itself. His heart ground to a halt for eternal seconds until the drumming between his ears boiled up; his heartbeat racing faster than the two syllables had been spoken. He had never asked for the child to refer to him with such a beautiful courtesy.

"Hm?" he would say nothing about the title bestowed upon him, unwilling to discourage the sentiment or tamper with the sweeping rush of utter glee it left him with.

"When you find out where Mrs. Hughes and Elysia and Alphonse are, can you tell me too?" the child looked over her shoulder at him, the braid on her left shoulder slipped off as she tilted her head, "I haven't seen them in a while and I want to play with Alphonse again, it's more fun when he's around."

A quirky curl found its way into the corner of the prime minister's lips, "Of course, Nina."

Dante smiled wide for the man, tying an extravagant bow at the end of each marionette string she dangled from the government ceiling; all the while, her rotting soul cursed in frustration that she was scarcely able to do much more.

Patience would have to be the only virtue allowed to mingle with the seven sins.

* * *

"Do you think you'd be interested in attending?"

Giving a blank look at Thomas standing in the doorway, Winry found that his invitation left her with somewhat of an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She slipped her hair over her shoulders as he shut the front door of the Wilson home.

"I don't think I have anything nice enough to wear to someone's birthday party, especially something that sounds so extravagant."

"That's fine," Thomas grinned, tapping the toe of his shoe on the mat so the snow would fall away, "I'm sure we can find something for you, one of Patti's sisters is around your size, I can ask if she has something."

She couldn't prevent the light sigh that slipped out, and soon folded her arms across her chest. It was rude to refuse the invite, but…

"Thank you for the invite, I'll run it by Ed and his dad and see what they have planned, I'm not sure what they're both up to this week. I don't want to say yes for them and then find out there are complications."

Thomas's grin grew, smirking as though he were wiser than Winry had considered him to be, "Well I'm quite certain Hohenheim knows its coming up, Edward may not have been apprised though. But, he's been to my grandfather-in-law's birthday before."

Winry's tilted her head with amusement, "Ed went to these kinds of parties with you?"

Thomas chuckled at Winry's sudden interest, "Yes, he has. He was a little skeptical at first, but Patricia's grandfather is quite the character in his old age, he's been having masquerade parties since his seventieth birthday; he says it makes him feel young. A few years back, several of us rented out a hall and hosted it with a royal theme; Edward ventured out that night with the title of 'King Edward the Eighth'. He uh…" the man tapped his chin in thought, a nervous laugh entering his voice, "well, I think we were more amused with the escapade than he was, but in the end it's a fond memory. Edward returned home as the 'Pauper King', and he wasn't too pleased with that."

"The 'what' King?" Winry couldn't help the foolish grin on her face, leaning against the corner of the wall as she allowed Thomas to continue.

"King Edward the Eighth, the Pauper King. Charles said that 'ill-tempered monarchs did not deserve to be called 'King' and told Edward it would have been more becoming if he'd gone as a pauper. Julie pronounced him 'Pauper King' sometime that night. It was all in jest, mind you, but Charles doesn't always leave Edward in a very whimsical mood, he can be very cynical when he wants to be."

"I've noticed…"

"I know Charles means well," Thomas gave a shrug of his shoulders, "but he can't shake the notion that Edward lacks respect. He's stormed out of rooms wanting to paddle Edward for something or other and has flown off the handle with Hohenheim more than once. As far as Charles is concerned, Hohenheim does nothing to discipline his son."

This was bizarre, Winry thought. For the time she'd existed in Germany, she'd barely conversed with anyone. She had wandered around as though she were some scared, yet fascinated child, and had spent the entire time trying to evaluate the Edward Elric she'd known against the man she was now faced with..

It was stranger yet to hear Thomas speak of Ed, because it was like learning about someone new. There was no one to tell her any stories in Germany, no one to remind her that by his perception, five years had passed since he'd left. Edward wasn't forthcoming with information, neither was Hohenheim, and since neither party brought up the past, she felt as though it was too intrusive to ask. It had become a non-issue for her and she'd easily forgotten that his perception of the passage of time was not the same as hers.

So, there actually _was_ a story, something she had been too busy feeling disoriented to even consider. A fascinating story of a place she didn't understand, a time she knew nothing about, and a friend unwillingly living a life within it. Again, the world beyond the Gate felt unreal, like a miserable book someone had written and she was skimming through the pages at top speed. It was an existence nothing like the one that shaped her and with everything she'd learned, there were times when she had to remind herself, 'yes, this fictitious life is real'.

Her mind's eye took a fleeting glance towards the looking glass.

"I've always found Edward to be amicable though," Thomas slid the fur hat off his head, feeling the warmth from the house heat up beneath his winter attire, "he was kind towards Julie, and I have no idea how I would have passed my first year in sciences without him."

"Was Julie a friend of yours?" Winry took a glance up the stairwell, hearing the sound of movement from above.

Thomas shook his head, "Julie was my little sister."

"Oh, I haven't met the rest of your family," her expression grew sheepish, "sorry, I didn't realize you had a sister."

Once again laughed and adjusted the collar of his coat, "No, no, don't worry, I haven't mentioned her, I wouldn't expect you to know."

Winry slapped her hands together, searching for anything to continue their conversation further. The curious twinge behind her poignant blue eyes wisely withheld a barrage of 'so what else is there about this British life of Hohenheim's and Edward's that I know nothing about?' The last thing she wanted was to pry and come off as a snoop, but; oh did the questions suddenly itch.

"Did you want to come in for a bit? I'm sure Dr. Wilson wouldn't mind me inviting you in."

The invitation was the notice for Thomas that he'd lingered within the warmth of the house for too long and the young man pulled his hat back on, "No, that's quite alright. I have errands I need to finish before the sun sets and if I spent too much more time here I may never leave." Once again, the man gave a laugh, something Winry and begun to realize was highly contagious when around him, "Give my regards to everyone, and pass on the invitation when you can."

"No problem," Winry's half crooked, awkward grin reemerged as he pulled the door open, "stay warm, alright?"

With a thank you and the nod of his head, Thomas ducked out of the house. Winter's bite crashed against the door the moment it cracked open and Winry quickly pushed it shut in the man's wake, slipping the chain-lock in place with the whip of her wrist.

She took a slow step backwards from the door, a hand coming to her chin as she considered the missed opportunity that had just walked out into the elements. Suddenly, spending time with the Hyland family seemed a little more intriguing than it had minute ago.

"Winry?"

The sound of heavy feet echoed from the stairwell. Sliding in her stockings along the hardwood floor, Winry gazed up into the curious expression Hohenheim wore with his beard.

"Was someone at the door?"

"Yeah," she gave a nod, slipping her hair behind her shoulders once again, "Thomas just left. He might still be outside, did you want me to grab him?"

Continuing his decent, Hohenheim gave a shake of his head and slipped past the girl en route to the tea pot he hoped was still warm in the kitchen, "Did he need anything?"

"Not really," she followed Ed's father into the kitchen, not bothering to pick up her feet as she moved; her mood felt more jovial than anything and she found it oddly amusing how nicely her stockings slid over the floor as she shuffled along, "but he wanted to know if we wanted to go to Patricia's grandfather's birthday party over the weekend."

Hohenheim wrapped his hand in a dishtowel as he reached for the potentially hot handle of the metal pot, "This weekend you say?" he took a quick, curious glance over his shoulder.

"Yeah …"

A suddenly perplexed expression flew over the old man, "Already? Where did the time go? Of course it's this weekend, I should have known better…" faint strands of white steam lifted from the elder father's cup as he slowly refilled his mug, "Did you tell him we'd love to go?"

Winry answered with a nonchalant shrug, "I told him I'd check with you and Ed first, but yeah I said it would be alright."

With his tea in hand, Hohenheim headed back towards Winry with a grin, "I think it'll be good to go out and have a fun evening like that," his strong hand landed atop the light blonde head of hair to give it a playful scratch.

She laughed at the gesture and slowly trailed behind him as the man returned to the stairwell.

"Um…"

Stopping on the third, carpet covered stair, Hohenheim looked back to a blonde whip of hair accompanying childish, blue eye gazing up at him from below, the uncertainty in her voice catching his attention.

"If you have time this week," Winry's hands gripped the knob at the end of the stairwell banister, "would you be able to show me the neighbourhood that you and Ed lived in while you were here?"

Of all the things she'd haphazardly considered she might say, that had not been one of them. Hohenheim's brow rose, intrigued by the request, "I don't see why not."

Yet again she was childish in her response, giving a jovial grin to the answer and giggled her 'thank you' before vanishing back into the lower floor of Charles Wilson's home.

Hohenheim remained on the third stair from ground level, pushing the last few moments through his mind again. Finally, the warm rim of his steaming cup came to his lips and Hohenheim stole a sip of the British world's tea before ascending the staircase once more.

* * *

Al stood in the doorway for only a few seconds; a tall glass gripped tightly in his right hand, filled half with water, half with ice. The delay was long enough to cause him to twitch and roll his shoulders as a trail of sweat slid slowly, unobstructed down the back of his neck. He intruded into the room once again.

The curtain drawn bedroom in the Ross cabin was a nice recluse from the relentless summer heat, for him anyways.

Brigitte, however, could not find enough relief in the cooler ends of the home. Her body continually catered to the endless pools of salty sweat that insisted on dampening her skin, soaking the roots of her hair, and discolouring the back of her dress. Rarely did the German girl emerge for much action before the sun dipped low enough behind the trees to provide a welcomed sanctuary. By that time, only a scarce beam of gold could find its way through the trees, and that was all she wanted to see of the inferno in the sky.

Nestled away in the corner of the room, sitting in the most un-lady-like position, Brigitte's tired blue eyes looked up to the young Elric as he knelt down in front of her. The glass of water Alphonse held out had grown a layer of as much cold sweat as its recipient had.

"Water?"

Carefully taking the slippery flask from its bearer, Brigitte wiped the moisture off on the end of her dress and gently set the precious, chilly column against her cheek, "Danke…"

Slipping down from his knees, Al pressed his back against the wall and his arms wrapped around to cradle his legs as he drew them to his chest.

"Are you feeling better?" his chin came down into the crevice of his knee caps.

The chilly glass at her lips, crystal blue eyes looked back at him at a loss. Tilting her head back, she let the bitterly cold liquid flow into her body without offering a response. The burn for air grew worse than the need to sully the effects of the intolerable day, and Brigitte's head snapped forwards as she took one last swallow and quickly gasped for breath. Her forehead once again pressed against the cool surface of a near-empty column of ice water.

Al's free hand came up and swept through his hair and he soon pushed to his feet. His interests took him towards the bed, which had become covered in the childish materials the two of them had used for some of the most astounding revelations. Alphabet, numbers, calendars, points of reference and a disastrous assortment of translation sheets were thrown everywhere. 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Hello', 'Good bye', 'wall', 'window', 'bed', 'sand', 'lake'… or at least, he hoped it was 'lake'. It might have been 'water'. He'd ask if it was 'water', but if he pointed to the glass she might think that the word was 'glass' or 'cup'. If he put his finger in the water she might think he meant 'cold'. Both the lake and the water were cold…

Alphonse's eyes crossed as one train of though tripped over the other. The potential frustration was eased by the sound of slow movement filtering from the corner. He glanced back to the wayward girl, a relaxing sense of relief sweeping over him as he watched Brigitte come to her feet.

His eyes traipsed back to the bed; sliding up on top of the sheets covering the creaking, king sized mattress, Alphonse slipped out one of the more vibrant pages within the pile. Pushing the remaining mess of near incoherent ramblings to the pillows, he left a clean sheet of paper to accompany the decorated one he'd kept and placed both of them in plain sight. He flopped on his stomach and the aching sound of rusted springs accompanied him.

Placing her hands against the soft sheets, Brigitte dropped to her knees at the side of the bed, folding her arms across the bedside and tucking her chin into the soft surface.

A pop echoed off the wooden walls when Alphonse pulled the cap from one of their many pens. His strokes were nearly silent as he sketched an accompanying piece to the colour-filled diagram the German child had provided.

"So this…" Alphonse stopped mid-task, opting for the more curious artwork at his side, "this is a map, right?"

Brigitte pulled her arms away from the growing heat of the bed, wiping her forehead on the thick comforter as she repositioned herself on her knees, "Mmm… Map?" she repeated, unknowingly.

With the dull end of the pen, Alphonse tapped the corners of her sheet, "This cross with N, S, E and W is for north, south, east and west, right? These are countries, these are cities and these are oceans," Al gave a slow nod as he reconciled the image in his mind, "the place with the star must be the capital city, but how do you say that again? Deuch…tsche…"

"Deutschland," the girl's hand swept back into her hair, giving a feverish scratch to a pesky itch. The palms of her hands came around; pushing harshly into the caves of her eyes she tried to rub away the exhaustion the heat bore down on her with.

"Well… I know the 'land' part," switching the positions of Brigitte's scribbled image and the sketch he'd begun, Al placed his outline of Amestris in front of them, "this is map is where we are now."

Brigitte's attention refocused on his image, again coming to the edge of the bed to see what was on display. She watched curiously as Alphonse marked his map similar to what she had done; writing the name of the country, "Amestris", through the center of the image. With the swift strokes of black ink, Alphonse left a star at the center of the sheet and marked "Central City" above it.

Questioningly, Brigitte's focus changed from the intolerable atmosphere to Alphonse's actions, "_Are you copying how I did my map? I took geography in school, there's no place called Amestris in Europe. That's not right._"

Brigitte's voice was merely background noise as Alphonse continued to sketch in the world surrounding Amestris. Readjusting the pen in his hand, he decided to give his world some meaning and added dots of life to the country: East City, Lior, Ishibal, Xenotime, Dublith, and lastly, Rizembool. With a quirky turn of his smile, Alphonse gave the cities a few inhabitants. Next to a box with a sharp, triangular lid drawn by Central City, 'Maria', 'Riza', 'Roy', 'Nina' and 'Brigitte' were written in with blue pen. For the box at Dublith, 'Izumi' was the resident. And in the last pointy box next to the Rizembool township, 'Ed' and 'Al' were written.

The blue pen was turned over to Brigitte, who took her visual cue and marked her own two house-boxes next two the only two cities she'd labeled. The first city that had its mark was 'Berlin'. Alphonse nearly found himself giggling as the German child wrote her name at that house and trailed a dotted line down to 'München', whistling as she did so. The house in München was nearly as crowded as the one in Central with 'Brigitte', 'Ed Elric', 'Hohenheim', and 'Oberth'.

For a moment, Brigitte considered adding the names of classmates, friends, and others, but didn't have the energy to go through having to explain them. These people were already names known to the people around her.

"So…"

The pale, blonde German child fixated her attention upon the steadfast Elric look; a suddenly powerful, aggressive and determined desire manipulated the fire that fueled the young man's determination. An almost smug, yet proud grin hit the boy's face for a moment, and the endless hours of curious work allowed the sense of accomplishment to flow with the blood in his veins.

"My brother's in a place called München? Hmm…" pushing up from his stomach, the crumbling springs of the mattress withheld their cries as Alphonse came to sit cross-legged above their support. Silver eyes, shining with a moist, glossy coat, continued to absorb the heaps of information his displaced companion continued to present him with. The last Elric reached out for the German map and circled the city that would become his goal.

"That's the place I need to find."

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

This chapter was originally posted 02/10/06 at http / www . livejournal . com / users / yuuki / 101297 . html

München is "Munich"

Cuckoo clocks are love, everyone should have one.

AutoMail should seem harder than traditional prosthesis. However, in Winry's case, her technological knowledge starts at AutoMail, so she doesn't have strong knowledge of what came before because technology has made life easier on her. Similar to how most people today can run Windows XP just fine... but DOS? Windows 3.11? They may be more basic and simpler by comparison, but if you don't use them on a regular basis, you're not going to be proficient with them

Random note on myself - I'm in my last 6 weeks of school before I graduate, it's absolutely HECTIC. The next chapter might take a while in coming because I want to devote this time to school/graduating/etc. If I get some writing in then great, if not, you know why! I'm not forgetting about the story though.

... You know, originally I planned to finish this story by the time the movie'd come out - that didn't happen. So I said "by the time I graduate!", well, that won't happen either. So, I plan to finish this story by the time I turn 30, that should give me enough time.


	23. Puppetmaster

**Chapter 74 - Puppetmaster**

With a jovial snap of his right arm, Thomas whipped a mound of colourful hat back at a grumbling young man, "Edward Elric you are nothing but a spoilsport."

It was true, he was not a fun sport! After being after duped by his father and Winry, who'd taken off into London and left him at the Hyland house, he wished to be nothing more than a spoilsport.

In the span of two hours that afternoon, he had been taken captive by this family, locked away in the master bedroom, forced to strip, then re-dress at their beck and call at least four times. He was their little marionette and the strings danced about with every "Please Edward" and "Oh come on" that came from their mouths.

"I think this one works the best, actually," Thomas tilted his head, "I mean, just the way the drape on the side hangs, it doesn't look awkward at all without your arm."

"Oh lovely," the words slid from the corner of Edward's mouth, "I look like some seventeenth century courtyard child in bloomers and white tights… but it's okay because it hides the fact I'm less one arm. That's so reassuring, thank you Thomas. I really appreciate the jes-"

The elder of the two couldn't help but laugh, "That's not what I meant by it, don't twist my words. Everyone attending is going to look foolish. Have you seen what I'm wearing? Have you seen what your father chose? Just bite your bitter tongue for a change and play along like a good chap," he couldn't help but broaden his grin at the sneer Ed sent his way, "It's for an old man's birthday for goodness sake, it's not like you will be on stage performing."

Edward looked back at his own reflection in the full-length mirror. The simple shoes were the only thing truly comfortable; the white tights itched, the pantaloons over his hips and thighs looked ridiculous, and the vest would have been tolerable if not for the frilly, button-up collar. Thomas received silent acknowledgement that the drapery over his right shoulder did take away most of the awkward look that the other outfits had. The hat was just preposterous; a black, turned-up brim with a deflated fabric balloon flopping limp to whichever side Ed chose.

"Well, did you like any of the other outfits? I think this was the last one Patti brought in for you," Thomas gave a light sigh, dropping his arms over his knees as he sat down, "she worked really hard picking out outfits you might like from her sister's theatre closets," he watched as Ed's shoulders sank, "the party's tomorrow night, I don't want to have to tell her that you're being a piss-poor sport about the whole thing."

Oh no, Edward didn't want to be part of that conversation what so ever. From the time he'd met her, until the time he'd vanished to Germany, being in the same room with her had felt uneasy enough. They would carry on the most disjointed conversations. Someone would speak and Patricia would look away, her voice was nervous while his faltered, and somewhere in the back of Ed's mind was the uneasy understanding that, more so than not, she felt either intimidated by his presence or was simply afraid of him.

For Ed's part, he wanted to have nothing to do with her; he wanted to look, appear, and be disinterested in her. Most of all, Ed wanted to dislike her – she behaved nothing like his mother, so couldn't this ghostly image simply leave him alone? Yet, Ed found himself wanting to indulge in the guilty pleasure of knowing everything about her.

There were occasions when the insecurities of each other's presence would lapse; though, more so on this return trip than had ever been established before. Yet, Edward carried the fear that for just a moment he would find himself curiously watching her, without conscious thought for his actions, she would notice and that look of unease would return to her eyes before she'd quickly look away.

The look in her eyes before she'd turn away hurt more than any words his mother had ever spoken.

Once, there had been a time where a great, disastrous and unspoken misunderstanding between Edward Elric and the future Patricia Hyland had manifested itself. It had never been verbally discussed nor acknowledged, so each was left to guess what the other was thinking, or at least, trying to think. Ed's generally anti-social disposition at the time did nothing but hinder progress. The young Elric could only surmise what a young woman in Patricia's position would think; to have the friend of your future husband act out of sorts around you, have him struggle in conversation with you, then to catch his eyes wandering over you…

"This'll do," he surrendered.

"Are you sure?"

Ed turned to face Thomas, rolling his eyes, "You whine that I won't choose something, then you question me when I say I'll wear this?"

"Alright," the man raised his hands in defense, "then it's decided. Patti took your clothes into the other room, hurry up and change before lightning strikes me down or you see fit to change your mind."

Snorting, Ed tossed the hat into a vacant chair, "Don't patronize me Thomas."

"You woke up on the wrong side of the bed today didn't you?" came the unfazed response, "I can see why your family dumped you off in my care and didn't stay around. They'd probably grown weary having to listen to you all morning."

"Winry's already chosen her outfit, so she didn't need to be here," Ed scratched over the back of his head as he pulled himself out of the room, "plus she had some errands or something to run, my dad just volunteered out of the blue to drive her. Usually he makes me escort her around, so it can be his turn to stop the car every 5 or 10 minutes when she wants to get out and have a look around."

Ed found himself shaking his head while lifting his gaze into the opposite room. Uninterested in responding to the man who teased him, Edward's eyes carried curiously around the walls of a much more silent space. The room wasn't quite as he'd remembered it being a half hour ago, obviously it had been tidied from the stacks of clothing that had gathered throughout the afternoon. Slowly his expression slipped as it began to fill with signs of confusion – indeed, all the clothes had been tidied and cleared out, including his.

"Pat-"

Edward never had a chance to finish her name, and Patti's reaction was far more stifled than his. Her hand had come up to cover her mouth while Ed had given a startled gasp at the woman who'd appeared out of thin air.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," she moved fast to clear the moment, breaking contact and ushering herself into the room swiftly, "I came in unannounced, my apologies."

"No, it's alright."

The conversation ended there with a sudden derailment, and Edward found himself giving the woman a curious eye, wondering what brought the sudden delightful glow to her face…

… Wait.

"You approve?" Ed glanced down at his outfit.

"Do you approve?" came the response.

"I guess," he gave a shrug of his shoulders. Yes, this would have to do, even if the thought of humouring the masses for an evening made him wish he'd never gotten out of bed that morning, "but I'd think I should change out of it for now, I just can't find…"

At the trailing of his voice, Patti's flew in, "Oh, that's right, I moved it all to straighten my linens. Give me one moment Edward, I'll be right back with them."

The woman was swift in her movements, leaving Ed silent in her wake as she vanished from the room. He stood without a word, without movement for far too long, allowing no excuse for his silence, before finally he slid his feet farther into a study room that appeared as though no fingerprints had ever tarnished the pure, unadulterated surfaces. His eyes drifted around the room. It always bothered Edward when he'd realize that he was looking for pieces of a life he'd set ablaze within the Hyland home. There was always something intangible that existed within this family's walls that caused him to do that. He never knew what he was looking for, and never seemed to find it either. Today, his eyes floated up to what looked almost like a mural: the London bridge. A night scene painted out with heavy brush strokes, and the bridge lights nothing but thick, white dabs of oil paint. The world was sealed within an extraordinarily detailed gold coloured frame and Edward looked while it swallowed the entire wall.

"Sorry Edward!"

The woman moved into the room again as he turned back to see her. Within her arms, she adjusted the perfectly folded garments Edward had walked through their door wearing.

"I had put them under one of the costumes you'd had on- oh?"

Edward froze, watching as the woman's hand reached to grab what had slipped out of his bundled clothing. With a slight ting, the pocket watch he'd retrieved from the clock shop earlier that day bounced off the carpeting.

For the thousandth time that day, Patricia apologized. Edward wondered if the words were programmed into her by society. He watched her thin hands take hold of the foolish bookmark in his life, the glaze on her red fingernails caught the light's reflection much the same way that the silver on his watch did. Her voice came and Edward found himself giving no acknowledgement to it, his mind focused on the soft, right hand cradling the replicated symbol of how he'd managed to so badly lose his way.

"You know Edward,"

The words came out like opening lines to a letter. His mind came to attention as the watch was placed carefully in his left hand. The silver chain slowly wound down into his palm, wrapping circles around the watch's edge.

"Thomas told me once that you carried this as a reminder of some things you'd lost track of in your life, but you still didn't want to forget about them. I think your father told him that, but please don't get upset with him, he never elaborated to what that was."

With the slight twitch of his thumb, the polished cover of the watch flipped open. His reflection flickered not only in the glass face, but in the smooth, unadultered inside-surface of the silver lid as well. Funny, he thought, how he could see things in that concave surface that he'd kept so close to his person before.

"It's a very elaborate watch, did you lose a lot of things in its time?"

The quiet, familiar voice drifted with the most astounding calm and innocence.

Often times there were words that slipped from his mouth that he wished he could take back, and then there were times where those words escaped without Ed realizing he'd uttered them aloud. The only ears to acknowledge his voice were not his own.

Edward snapped the lid of the silver pocket watch shut. His tone quickly changed; the mediocre, frank tone that Edward used carelessly swung about, and Patti found herself having to accept that he had, almost instantly, ran off and hid behind it.

"Thanks for grabbing my clothes, Patti, I'll be back down in a minute, alright? Tell Thomas to dress up in whatever he's wearing tomorrow night, I need to see what I'm up against."

She only nodded as he took the clothes from her arms, cautious hands folding up into her chest as the burdened man walked out of the room. As did the presence in the room before her, Patricia's eyes drifted up to the painting.

"You're too young to have lost 'everything', Edward."

* * *

"Hello again, my dear!"

Nina's grin flashed wide, her hands tightly gripping the edge of the white desk as she shifted her weight from side to side, "You're always so busy with papers, Miss Dy, do they ever give you a break?"

The modest young woman laughed, tapping a finger atop one of many piles of paper that had grown like weeds over not only her desk, but of the empty associate desks around her, "Nina, I'm the lowest one on this office totem pole, I get to take care of everything everyone else doesn't want to deal with."

Wrinkling her nose, the child rocked on the balls of her feet, the white lace ends of her baby blue dress danced around her, "That's not nice of them, they should buy you lunch for all the things you do."

"You're so sweet, Honey," the secretary's chin-length, brown hair bounced around her face as she moved from the desk, lightly rubbing the tips of her fingers in Nina's hair, "but if they treated me to lunch, I wouldn't be able to get all these files sorted for tomorrow."

"Is it interesting at all?" the shorter of two brunettes tossed her woven hair over her shoulders.

It had been just the two of them for the last ten minutes or so. Not long before that she had spent her time entertaining three office women. The other two had both been mothers, where as the 'office maid' didn't consider herself old enough to start a family. Nina loved how the two mothers fawned over her. She loved the attention. She loved how they re-tied the two bows in her hair, how they praised her for keeping her white gloves, shoes and shoulder purse so clean, and how they did nothing but shower her in praise. 'Nina' loved how she could wrap them up so easily with her smile, and then decorate their behaviour with a bow much larger than the ones at the ends of her hair. They nearly cheered with delight, because with each passing day they would fall in love a little bit more with this little girl as she became more social, more interested, and drift away from the cold, anti-social child she'd started out as. Her laugh made them giddy. Her smile got her everything she asked for. And if she was lucky, her 'innocent' childish inquiries got her information.

The wicked little mage loved her precious magical spell, and she'd cast it over everyone.

Raising her nose in the air in jest, Miss. Dy shook her head, "Your dad's job is interesting, but it's nothing you'd like at all. It's all government things. Personnel reports, cross border relations, negotiation reports, conflict and conflict resolution papers, military authorization paperwork and one or two inquisitions in progress; all sorts of crazy, uninteresting things for your dad and his peers to look at."

"His job is really that boring?"

"Not really," dropping a stack of empty files on an adjacent desk of secretarial and operational mish-mash, the elder of the two little women gave a shrug, "he gets to meet all sorts of neat people, he gets the chance to go to interesting places, he gets lots of neat things and lots of people look up to him to boot. Even if the muscles in his arms aren't that strong, he's still a powerful man!"

Nina laughed, "I like that. That's nice he lets you help so much."

"Well," sliding back into her desk, Miss Dy grinned sheepishly, "I don't help him directly, but I help the people who help him directly. Make sense?"

A slow nod came about in response and the child transitioned her thoughts, "Maybe today he needs more help, he's taking a really long time."

The young secretary tapped her pen against the desk, "Yeah he is, hopefully he doesn't take too much longer." The woman's thoughts drifted away from her work as she smiled back at Nina, her pen finding a resting place in the crease of folded paperwork, "It's nice he takes time out of his day to spend time with you. My dad never invited me out for lunch at work when I was little."

Nina glanced away with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, "He's sleepy all the time after work. Sometimes we read stories but not always."

Lacing her fingers, a mused grin grew into Miss Dy's expression, "And you two have 'tea', that's just really cute."

With an exceedingly affirmative nod, Nina folded her arms across her chest, "Tea and cookies."

The secretary gave a laugh, finding the whole story simply darling, "And you like tea, Nina?"

Slowly her head tilted, opening her lips to spill some perceived honesty, "No, but we add honey and it tastes lots better."

The woman couldn't hold her giggles at the comment, amused by the family setting she painted in her mind.

Childishly, the girl's face contorted again, "And I'm thirsty just waiting today. Tea's usually almost finished by now."

"I know," standing up again, Miss Dy, stepped away from the confines of her desk, "I need to fill my coffee cup, so why don't I snag you a glass of water while I'm at it?"

"Really!" her eyes widened with delight, a favourite tactic that worked so well.

The woman's hand landed over the doorknob, pushing it open as she looked back over her shoulder with the wink of her right eye, "Of course, I'll be right back, okay? And if your dad comes by, all the better."

"Thanks Miss Dy!"

"Hang tight."

The thin covering of bangs across her forehead shivered as a light breeze blew through the room upon the closing of the door. What an interesting situation Dante's maleficent soul had conjured up. With the grace of an orchestra conductor, the glove-covered, impish hands landed carefully upon one of many curious piles of paper that had befallen the desk of Miss Dy. It wasn't the first time she'd poked her nose into the files of this room, and as she was now, tangible treasure was not something she could dig up as easily as it had been when she stood hip-to-hip with the most powerful man in the parliament. Word of mouth and convenient eavesdropping were effective, but hard evidence was much more reliable. Miss Dy rarely had treasure to begin with, it was the other women she loved courting, but whispers in the wind had yet to deliver information regarding the office's 'one or two inquisitions'.

How curious.

The cotton-covered stubs of fingers slowly flicked through sheets, inwardly cursing at the lack of thin, mauve fingernails that used to flip paper so easily.

"Hello," Dante sweetly greeted the linked chains of tractor fed typewriter paper and swept them out of the pile like a magician. Pinched between her thumb and fingers, childish eyes scanned the numbers, phone numbers, trace-routes, times, dates and codes upon the sheets, "I don't think I'll be needing honey in my tea today."

The three pages were folded four times, and tucked into the zipper'd purse pocket that bounced on her immature hip, beneath a flower petal handkerchief one of the office women had given her. She could have cared less what that woman's name had been.

* * *

The mystery was lost.

So many of life's mysteries go by the wayside as you grow older, but this one had been a fancy Winry hadn't acknowledged since she'd been a little girl sitting in her mother's lap, combing through their catalogues.

So this was how wedding dresses and fancy gowns held their volume.

The hoop skirt and petticoat had to have been the second most horribly contrived thing that she'd ever put on since coming across the Gate. However, the first was undoubtedly, unconditionally, absolutely the nearly unbearable corset Patti had laced her into.

"Well," Patricia tapped a finger to her cheek, admiring the finished products standing before her, "I think you two look darling."

"Your grandfather is insane, Patti," Edward replied flatly, exchanging a glance with Winry as the two stood at the middle of the room.

"Edward Elric be nice," the mother's moderately stern words drew a childish, sulking expression to his face, which did nothing but cause Winry to giggle. Gathering up the loose ends of her costume experiments, Patti bundled the belongings in her arm and turned to the next room, "my grandfather is a very vibrant and colourful man; he's a lot of fun to be around."

"Uncle Edderd!"

The name never ceased to make Winry giggle or Ed shake his head.

The child tugged on his cape until he handed out the undivided attention she desired. Crouching down to an easier level for the girl, Ed pulled on a grin for the little girl while the mother quietly slipped herself out of the room.

"Do you have a toot?"

The question sunk Edward, "A what?" he quickly glanced up to Winry who could only give a wide eyed shrug at the question.

"What's a 'toot'?" he couldn't help but surrender to the absurd question, momentarily wishing the girl's mother would return to play translator.

The child's face wrinkled horribly, "Like in my book. Mummy reads the book!"

Ed's facial expressions were just as liquid as Margaret's and again he contorted with the confusing question. Bound too tightly to come down to either of their levels, Winry joined in the conversation from above.

"Which book does Mummy read to you?"

"Piper book!" the little girl quipped.

"… Piper book…?" Winry's gaze cast to the ceiling in thought.

"Pied Piper?" Ed cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes!" if the girls head had not been so tightly affixed to her body, she would have tossed it across the room from her nod, "I liked Pie Piper!"

Winry couldn't allow such a foreign conversation right beneath her nose to go unquestioned, "What's a Pie Piper?"

Ed gave a laugh, rising to his feet once again, "Pied Piper. It's a children's story book."

"What's it about?" even if it was a children's story, it wasn't a story that was part of Winry's childhood. She found herself captivated by the mystery children's tale, irregardless of how strange it was for her to inquire with as much curiousity and mystique as Margaret.

"I tell!" the little girl bounced, her tiny hands grabbing onto the front of Winry's dress as the two people towering over her looked on, "There are bad mice in all sorts of places that don't go away. The Pie Piper comes and dances and toots and the mice go far away. That's Pie Piper."

"Yeah, it goes something like that I guess," Ed's brow quickly rose at the bare-bones summary of information, "Margaret, did you want to know if I had a 'flute'?"

Like there had never been any doubt, Margaret nodded, "Uh huh, I said that. Froot."

After a moment of consideration and a glance to Winry for some feminine insight, Edward's face slowly blanked, "Why would I have a flute?"

"Because!" once again, Margaret bounced with untamed exuberance, "Uncle Charles says you're Pie Piper!"

For all that Winry didn't know and didn't understand about a Piper who scared away mice with pies and flutes, she understood enough to recognize when the ceiling of patience and tolerance that teetered delicately above Edward's head had come crashing down around them.

"… What?"

Winry glanced between her suddenly boiling companion and the completely unaware child, who was astoundingly oblivious and unfazed by Ed's sudden flare of discontent.

"He says if I ask you can play froot and dance like Pie Piper!" a delightfully hopeful voice squeaked.

A recently filed fingernail, once chipped and torn from hours of woodwork and construction, scratched lightly at Winry's temple. Strangely enough, the blissful ignorance standing before the thrashing rage managed to tune out the unease, and unintentionally did the world a great service by muffling most of the forthcoming noise. Winry's fingernail continued to scratch at her temple, wishing that Dr. Wilson didn't have the power to turn Ed into a walking time bomb, but thankful Ed's manners behaved well enough to remain somewhat composed in front of the toddler.

"… He said I'd do what?" the restraint holding Ed together sent a quiver through his voice.

Clearing her throat, Winry stepped into the conversation, hoping she could keep Ed from bearing fangs in front of the poor child, "Margaret, your Uncle Edward doesn't have a flute, so he's not this Piper's Pie. Would you go tell Dr. Wilson that?"

For Margaret, it was as though she'd been told she couldn't cuddle the neighbourhood stray, and with hints of whining protest, the child's lower lip grew a little larger, "But Uncle Edderd looks like Pie Piper."

When it came right down to it, all Winry really wanted to do was laugh at the absurd sounding situation. Ed was acting no more mature than his pint-sized admirer and, besides that, what did mice and pie have to do with it anyways?

"I am not dressed as the Pied Piper, Margaret," Ed snorted, holding his distain at the back of his throat.

Winry wondered if Edward even realized how futile an argument with a two-year-old was.

"But Uncle Charles told people you're Pie Piper!"

With his right eye twitching, Ed's voice rose where his rage could not, "You know, if I had a flute, I know who's ass I'd sho—"

"ED!" Winry's hand slapped over his mouth before he could go any farther, quickly ending Edward's side of the debate, "now listen Margaret, Uncle Charles is a very funny man who likes to tell funny stories that aren't always true. So, listen to Aunty Winry when she says that you should go tell Uncle Charles that both Uncle Edward and Aunty Winry don't think calling Uncle Edward names is very nice, okay? And if he has a problem with that, tell him to come talk to Aunty Winry and I'll set him straight, okay?"

"Okay I go talk to Uncle Charles about Uncle Edderd, Aunty Winny and Pied Piper now okay?" the child had nearly vanished before her last words had reached anyone's ears.

Winry's hand slipped graciously off Edward's face, realizing the lid was teetering on his mental teapot, "Okay..."

"And we came to England WHY?" the disgruntled voice blurted out with a hefty sigh.

"Ed," Winry's tone dropped flat, matching his simmering temper strands with a mildly annoyed gaze, "as I see it, being called names by a child can't be that bad."

The snap of his hair couldn't keep up with the sudden shake of the head Edward gave, "That's not the point, Winry."

"No Ed, I got the point, I just don't see how it could possibly be that bad. While some child is running around calling you some pie and flute peddler, I'm stuck in this dress, bound so tight that I can barely breathe. My back is going to kill tomorrow. You got off easy. So, unless you want to trade outfits and wear the corset…?"

With the snap of her tongue, the angry mechanic had diffused the teapot, "That's alright, I'll pass."

Taking up two huge handfuls of fabric in each hand, Winry hiked her dress up off the floor, turned on her heels and marched out of the room, "Don't you dare bitch around me tonight. Smile, be nice, and pat the little girl on the head once in a while.

* * *

Even by three in the afternoon, the sun still hovered boisterously above the landscape. Accosted by the dancing yellow ball above the earth, a forgotten inlet in a subsidiary road laid lifeless; nothing but cooked dust, littered with crumbling, wooden buildings. Before a long forgotten and obviously neglected gasoline stop, two dressed-down figures loitered around a precariously perched, but quite functional, telephone stand.

The suns rays were quite entertained by the two figures doting on the dust covered communication box. An hour earlier, the yellow annoyance in the sky had tumbled down from above and strangled the radiator of the car the two figures had occupied. And now, after an hour's walk, and almost another hour of pacing in the sand, this poor metal box had became the recipient of a vicious, vulgar tongue.

By the afternoon, the sun had done a marvelous job of boiling Mustang's frustration. The radiator had lit the aura engulfing him, the long walk heated the pot, and it had been the forty-five minutes he'd spent with his forehead resting against the filthy, metallic phone box attempting to get through to Central that boiled things over.

"This is fucking ridiculous…" Mustang's finger twitched.

He hadn't heard a human's voice since he'd originally dialed in.

"I have extra change if you need to plug the phone again…"

Riza sat at the side of the crumbling, asphalt road, any signs of tire tracks, horse hooves, carriage wheels or life had been buried beneath the dust that covered the path.

"Why do we play funeral music for the hold music?"

"Is it our own funeral?" it took the palms of both Riza's hands to wipe the perspiration from her face, "Sorry Sir, I don't have that kind of change."

Mustang's eyebrow twitched like his fingers did, "It'll be Havoc's funeral if he keeps running up the telephone bill."

Riza frowned, her arms draped over her drawn up knees, "I would still like to know why our last telephone conversation went the way it did. The Lieutenant locked himself up in code, I'm impressed we were even able to find our way out here. It's not like Lieutenant Havoc to convolute things so much."

"Major," Mustang's brow lowered in thought, "you were the one who supported the use of various degrees of telephone code during missions."

She nodded, not disagreeing with her superior officer, "I know I did, but I did not expect to translate a conversation with Lieutenant Havoc."

"Taking into account who Brigitte is and the things she had in her possession, and then the show Lieutenant Ross put on for the procedure, I have no doubt he was moving cautiously."

Riza's head shook lightly while her fingers moved over her brow, sliding stray, blonde hairs aside. Her thoughts were at an impass, stuck on an unexplainable situation, "Have we ever found out how this child ended up in the care of the most highest ranking official, or why he gave her up without a legal battle?"

One of many frustrated sighs escaped in Mustang's breath, somewhat frustrated by that, and many other questions that he could only theorize and hypothesize answers for, "I doubt he realized her impact. The child is product of a level of alchemy I'm not even comfortable with, let alone familiar with. The Prime Minister is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a master of alchemy."

Defying the sun, that had brought her to the roadside to begin with, Riza rose to her feet, dusting off the jeans that had been rolled up to her knees, "But if we decide that the girl crossing this 'Gate' is no longer theory, but fact, how did she wind up there? Someone must have known and someone should be held accountable," turning with her thoughts, the Major's strides took her out towards the dry, open fields, "I can't believe she could have appeared out of thin air and had no one notice – especially if the first certain location of this girl's existence is the Prime Minister's residence."

Mustang shifted his weight from left foot to right, running his free hand through sweat-dampened hair, "Alphonse has no idea how she got here, the first time he saw her was in the family courtyard."

"What about the possibility that she is simply a homeless child?"

"We don't forget it, but the type of information we've stacked up against the option has me-"

Mustang stopped mid sentence, his shoulder's relaxing in relief of the welcomed sound of a ring tone, "Finally…"

It was eerie, Riza suddenly realized, how nothing more came from her superiors lips. Her heat stricken gaze peeked over her shoulder to the disturbing, slit-eyed look Mustang wore, his lips cracked open in confusion, his gaze locked in the corner of his sockets as he attempted to see the receiver pressed against his ear.

She didn't speak, Mustang's left hand rose for her silence as he attempted to steady the situation, debating if a sound would eventually emanate from his lips. Echoing faintly from the receiver at his ear, 'hello' came across not once, but twice, before the brigadier general ended the conversation with the slow and methodical replacement of the earpiece on its cradle.

The beads of sweat running free over her forehead took a new course as her blonde brow tightened, "… Sir?"

"Major, what might be the reason Hakuro is seated at my desk?"

"Pardon?" blue eyes widened without concern for the flood of daylight around her.

"Sitting at my desk, answering as though it were his department?"

Hawkeye straightened her posture, holding dialogue within her superior's gaze as the dual sets of eyes rushed to dissect what little information had suddenly arose.

Mustang was the first to bristle, throwing his gaze down the road they'd walked along over an hour ago, "It's simply quicker to walk than to wait for the radiator to cool at dusk. It would take too much time to find a well in what's left of this town."

"Do we head back to Central tomorrow, Sir?" Riza rolled away the stiffness in her legs and arms from the hour of lethargical lingering.

Taking his first, frustrated strides back towards a lake house, buried behind the sanctuary of wilderness greenery, Mustang did not respond to the question.

* * *

Left foot over right foot, stutter step, slide – at least no one could see her feet if she missed a step on the dance floor; this floor-length, flowing gown with it's sparkling headdress and tightly bound torso was more like a device than an article of clothing. Corset, stockings, wires, sleeves, layers combined with balance and coordination were going to put her in traction by the end of the night, she was certain of it.

The party was nice, the atmosphere was pleasant, the people were courteous, and for some reason everyone touched her hair and commented on her eyes. Winry'd found that had happened in Germany too, but could never understand why. However, she enjoyed the atmosphere in London, it was nothing like she'd experienced in Germany – that place had her frightened, though she found herself at a loss when it came time to convey that. For the time being, she was determined to enjoy London to the best of her ability; though, her enjoyment suffered a blip whenever Patricia pulled the strings on her costume to keep it from sliding too far down.

Catching someone's cry of Edward's name, Winry tried to look past her current dance partner's shoulder, attempting to catch a glimpse of what gave her non-participatory escort cause to roll his eyes.

"Edward Elric?"

"Oh, hey…"

The woman, bundled in one of the more elaborate dresses of the evening, swept her way over to him. The reaction on Edward's face would remain static while inwardly he cringed: this was the sixth person tonight that he could remember the face of, but not their name or where he should have known them from. From his chair at one of the many round, white cloth covered tables spread out around the hall, Ed turned to face the approaching sound.

"Oh my goodness," the older woman, her moderately aged face wrinkled wherever her smile created a crease, greeted him with a delight that he could only sheepishly reciprocate. He'd never bothered to become acquainted with many of the people his father socialized with, or his neighbours, or many of the Hyland family's extending family and friends. Back then he hadn't been interested, he had not been ready or able to accept the world he'd been unceremoniously deposited in.

"It's so good to see you again, you know, I think I may have heard rumblings that your family was in town but I don't think I gave the stories much merit. My goodness, what a striking costume you've come in! I'm not sure if it's your age or the costume that has you looking so much older," the woman took his hand as Edward rose to his feet. He was absolutely certain it was not the costume giving her that impression; he felt like a circus clown.

"Well," he skittered around the greetings all together, "my father and I dropped in somewhat unannounced."

"Is your father attending the party?" the woman shone with delight that dug out an uneasy laugh from Edward, "I haven't seen him since the minister's luncheon years ago."

Scratching his cheek, Ed took a glance out onto the dance floor, "Yeah, he's out dancing with someone last time I checked… but I don't see him."

"What a lovely thought. I'm going to take a gander out on the floor. Would you tell your father I say hello if we don't cross paths tonight?"

"Definitely," it was a foolish, obligatory grin he extended to her as she swept away.

Without a chance to position himself back in the seat he'd happily occupied a hand gripped around his upper arm.

"I think I've danced with everyone but you," Winry quipped.

"I don't dance."

"Including your father!"

Regardless of the interference, Ed sat down, "You're not going to win. I'm not dancing."

"Come on Ed, humour me," Winry's arms flopped around childishly in protest.

His eyes suddenly narrowed, "How much have you had to drink?"

"I have no idea," her hands landed on her hips in whimsical defense, "nearly all the nice gentlemen I've danced with have bought me something. No one seems to care that I'm not old enough for most of it."

Ed snorted, giving a his head a shake, "That's because they all have their eyes on the girl with the perfect blonde hair and crystal eyes."

"My eyes. Are. Blue," with her gaze tossed to the ceiling, Winry spoke as though she'd just announced that not only were her eyes blue, but the sky was as well.

A moment of silence between the two inflated like a balloon, and finally Winry glanced back down. Her head tilted like a curious child, perplexed as to why Edward's face was buried in his hand.

"Ed?"

"Go outside!" he laughed, lifting his head and catching Winry entirely off guard, "go outside, get some air, clear your head and then come back."

Wrinkling her nose, Winry's exaggerated movements zoned in on the giggling companion, "Why should I do that and will you dance with me after I come back?"

"Because it'll do you some good to get fresh air and no I won't."

"Thomas is right," she blurted out, spinning on her heels, "you are a spoil sport. I hope that chair is the most uncomfortable chair in the whole building."

"Take deep breaths."

"Whatever!"

"You know…"

The third voice into their conversation made Ed jump, and his attention shot up to Patricia, who took her own startled step backwards at the sharp reaction her voice had caused.

"Sorry…"

"Stop that," Edward dropped the words before he'd thought far enough ahead to stop himself.

"… Stop what?" the woman drew a concerned look into her expression.

It was too late now, and Ed chose one of the many things he wished she would cease doing, "Stop saying you're sorry for everything. You don't need to apologize to me for anything."

The response was far more uplifting than he could have hoped and the concern he'd had about making that request from her fell off his shoulders as she laughed.

"Very well then, Mr. Elric," her voice always seemed free of burden when she laughed, "I want to thank you very much for the birthday wishes and nice gift the three of you came with for my Grandfather. He was so delighted with seeing you and your father again, as I'm sure he mentioned to you," she again found her words caught up in controlled giggles while watching Edward shake his head and look away. In the middle of the few moments of conversation he'd held with the jovial, old man, Margaret had jumped in to make sure her great grandfather knew that Edward was dressed as the Pied Piper. All privy to the conversation laughed with approval, and he could have strangled something.

"It was very thoughtful indeed, but I do think you should dance with someone on the floor before the night is through."

"And I'm thinking otherwise," Ed's gaze quickly found its way to a window, not wanting to get locked into any sort of agreement brought on by any woman's pleading gaze.

But the giggles never seemed to dull, which tickled Edward's ear more than anything. From the corner of his eye he glanced back to the giggling voice, unable to resist the sound.

"You know what I've always wondered about you Edward, where you picked up that strange accent you speak with."

Edward's expression blanked, "My what?"

"You don't really speak with an English accent, it's not a Scottish or Irish one, nor is it an American one. It's almost sounds like you've learnt the language second hand, and you speak with the accents of your mother tongue, but I know English is your first language. I've just always found that fascinating about your mannerism and the way you speak."

Finding himself unable to conjure up a response to the comment, Ed simply straightened around in his chair.

"Your father speaks with such a nice, refined English, but you've always been so strange. And then you introduced Winry, and I was astounded – there was yet another person who spoke Edward English! Everyone's enjoyed listening to her tonight, I'm glad you brought her to visit."

The sheepish grin found its way back into Edward's face, but it was far less contrived than the one he'd had throughout the night, "I'm glad everyone's enjoying having her around, I didn't realize we spoke that differently from everyone."

Patricia had mastered the art of crouching in the bundled dress she adorned, and sunk down below eye level with the seated man. Her delighted expression never faded, "Do all the people you want back talk like you two do?"

It was so rare for Patti to allow him to look into her expression without the flickers of the woman's unease that he used to see in her years ago, and that made it all the more impossible to deny her: 'they probably do.'

No, it simply made it easy.

And that was all her inquiring mind wanted to know from the man who didn't feel like mingling with the rest of the party during the dancing hours.

Still giggling, Patti rose to her feet and stepped away to make her exit from the conversation, "It was just something that's always struck me. And just to state the point again, when Miss Rockbell comes back, you should take her up on the dance floor! She thinks you're sulking."

Like a riled kitten, Ed frazzled, "Patti, I really don't-!"

"I'm not sorry I brought it up!"

The woman's interjection came as she turned away from the conversation entirely, and Edward found himself sitting alone at the chair next to one of the many round tables in the rented out hall. For no reason he could explain, he found himself laughing again.

* * *

Izumi had known, full well, how long Mustang had been behind her on the top stair of the backyard porch. She could almost count it down to the second. Bathed in a twilight of powerful pinks and royal purples, the teacher would not invite the man behind her to engage in conversation. For the most part, she didn't care for his presence to begin with. She begrudgingly accepted his presence as a person Alphonse trusted, and little more.

He had been, after all, a State Alchemist; regardless if the Alchemist title was listed in the military ranks or not. A Dog of the Military.

Mustang was as much a stubborn mule as she was - it was a great impasse in their 'business-only' relationship. He continued to stand behind her, aware that his presence was known, but fully expecting the woman to eventually turn around and address him. She must know by now that he was standing out there for a reason, and this woman loved to question his reason.

Izumi said 'right', Mustang wanted 'left'.  
Mustang said 'go', Izumi announced 'no'.  
One said 'do this', the other said 'do that'.

It was an infuriating and endless contradiction of events, despite the moments when the alchemists within them could draw common ground for conversation; their applications of principles and ideas took divergent paths.

The treatment of Brigitte was the most controversial. Mustang wanted the mystery of the child's world solved before the mystery of Edward, and Izumi was far more interested in the stories the child had to tell, and the links she made to Edward, than the world beyond the Gate from where she feared the child came.

And then Izumi's bitterness towards the military set in, and Mustang established the line where he was right and she was wrong – a line Izumi disagreed with. Of all their little battles, this one was the most silent. And to spite their childish battle, the clouds in the sky grew bored, the sun gave up and the world laid to rest, disinterested in the petty strife between two adults.

In the end, it was Mustang who gave the woman this evening's victory, employing a military tactic in which the concession of little strifes could eventually lead to a greater success. He had too much on his mind to fight such a petty war of wits any longer.

"I don't care for whatever secret you're trying to protect. I have no interest in knowing what the Gate is, or how it impacts me, because until I spoke to that young Elric weeks ago I hadn't known it had existed. Obviously, if by this time in my life I haven't learnt about it, it's not useful to me," the words came out with command, the cross look in his eyes conveyed through the tone of his marching voice, "But you are telling me that it is an omnipresent player in this game we're involved in. I need to know how you know so much about what this Gate is that Alphonse is looking for and that Brigitte may have something to do with."

"You're looking to justify its existence by having me confirm it for you?" the answer Izumi gave came much quicker than Mustang had expected, and the sudden sound of her voice nearly caught him off guard, "To be honest, I know very little about the Gate. I had someone remind me of that recently. And any worth while information I have is second or third hand knowledge."

"Are you pursuing it for first hand knowledge?"

Izumi scoffed, nearly finding herself laughing at the suggestion, "I can't imagine what the cost of first hand 'knowledge' would be. I don't even know if it's first hand knowledge we need or if we can proceed without it."

Mustang's hands came to his forehead. Rubbing his thumbs into his temples, he slowly exhaled the frustration growing in his chest, "I do not understand how you've come to accept that there is a world within this Gate where people can exist. Where is the proof of this Gate?"

Her hands gripped the dried, wooden stair as Izumi pushed to her feet. Smoothing the length of her dusted, white jacket, she turned to look up at the officer, her hands falling low on her hips as her mind attempted to reconcile information.

"One," a hand slowly lifted from her hip, "I have seen it. Two, Edward has seen it."

It was not the answer Mustang had anticipated, nor one he had been prepared to receive. There was visual confirmation of this entity's existence? The officer's arms came up slowly, folding across his chest as he listened with the widest ears he'd ever granted his combatant.

"At least three other people have seen it, and one of them was an alchemy specialist I'd known and respected years ago. I didn't realize the enormity of her knowledge until after I'd lost contact with her," her hand lowered to her hip again, Izumi's figure slowly darkened into a silhouette against the shimmering moonlight reflection that bounced off the lake top, "Brigitte's first known location was within the property walls of the Prime Minister's residence. The last known location of this woman I'd once respected was in the Central Market as it exploded."

"Excuse me?" Mustang stepped forward, his arms falling to his sides as he moved.

Izumi's hands rose, stopping the officer where he stood. She way, by no means, finished, "The person I'd spoken within that market had the knowledge and words of this woman I'd once been associated with, a woman who knew far too much about the Gate Alphonse is looking for, but her face had changed. That day, she had face of your Prime Minister's ailing wife."

"Preposterous. She'd changed faces! That's absurd," Mustang was stopping this astoundingly ridiculous story; it had a hole he could drive a truck through. He'd known that woman, if only by association, "No, the woman married to Sebastian Mitchell was the fledgling alchemist assigned to Lieutenant Yoki in Youswell years ago. She is not even old enough to be your peer let alone an alchemy specialist."

It rattled Mustang's cage how Izumi's voice laughed back at him, but it did not mock him. He couldn't pinpoint just what part of her bitter tone seemed to pity him instead. The puppet master's strings wound through a mountain of societal ignorance.

"That's the mistake, Mr. Mustang. My mentor is over five hundred years old."

It would be one of the few moments in history when a marionette would be cut from its strings. This story would keep Mustang's attention wrapped around Izumi's every word. His body was locked in still frame but his mind's eye ran free, fascinated with this new, darkened side of the world suddenly at his disposal beneath the starlit sky.

"Until Lior, she had what were the only shards of Philosopher's Stone left in existence from a horrible moment in time. The Stone allowed her to, among countless other things, transfer her soul from a dying, withering body to another. The alchemy behind it, I'll never know. The methodology behind it, I'll never understand. The inhumanity behind it, I'll never comprehend. But the woman I spoke to in that market was my old mentor, wearing a new guise. I can only imagine why she let me confirm that for my own eyes."

The light from behind one of the curtain-closed windows fell dark, shading out what pale parts of the back porch had once been lit. The wind laid to rest at Izumi's feet, listening with ears wide open, silencing the rustling leaves of the trees that engulfed the lake.

"And she told me that, 'yes', we are indeed mistaken. We don't want anything 'from' the Gate, we want something 'from the other side'. Couldn't Edward Elric be on the 'other side' of the Gate? It bothered me while she spoke, and it was not just her words that did that. She had me thinking back to a poor, young woman from Lior who was the last person to see Ed alive. I thought of the description she'd given me of this unexplainable woman she'd known named Lyra – a woman Ed had known as well. A woman who was there when Ed had died."

There was that part of the story again. A staggering question mark that no one had an answer for, but everyone had to accept as fact: that at one point, Edward Elric had, in fact, died.

"In the end, this faux wife left me to chase some ancient riddle out to Ishibal. I…" Izumi's brow tightened, allowing her voice to vanish. Her mind raced, stumbling through a spider's web of strings woven by a master craftsman, "I have no idea what I found. But, what I found when I came back here was a little girl who'd come out from under the same roof where the puppeteer of this deplorable 'Gate' riddle lived."

"Lyra was the name of the woman who'd married the Prime Minister," Mustang's voice carried low, without intrusion, but delivery of fact in the dark of night, "and she passed away before Brigitte arrived."

Izumi's head shook, her teeth running over her bottom lip. Moving forwards, her sandy, bare feet crunched against the wooden stair-planks. Narrowing her eyes to adjust to the pale house light that soon fell over her face, Izumi's gaze drifted back to the officer. She watched him for a moment, the officer's concerns had been ensnared and tossed to sea by the breeze left in her wake.

"Why would a woman hell bent on staying alive for so long allow herself to pass away? And then, days later, a child with information from this storied life beyond the Gate appears in the house she haunted. Dante is free somewhere in that house."

Mustang's thoughts lay atop the lake like a fresh shipwreck, resting dead in the calm after an unforeseen storm. The male voice finally stepped in, the depth of his concern seeping back into corners he'd been in earlier that day, "She's a puppeteer, you say?"

"A master."

"She's running her strings through my office," with a pattern he could not control and a performance he could not direct.

Dreadlocks bounced over the back of her neck as Izumi turned back into the house. The screen door scratched along it's runners as she opened it, dislodged to a point where it was too much struggle to properly set it on its tracks.

For each string cut, ten more were woven. And all Izumi had to do was look over at Brigitte, sprawled out on the living room floor in her night shirt and shorts to realize she still had no answers to any of the 'whys'.

* * *

"And he was very nice to me when we were dancing, because my feet didn't always know which way to go, and he said that was okay."

A sloppy trudging of feet clattered along the road as Winry's sentences ran on one into another. Though, Edward found his path to be slightly more in line with the direction they'd been heading. He made his way along behind her, his hand buried deep within his jacket pocket and shoulders drawn up to keep the lobes of his ears warm with the collar of his jacket.

"And after the song finished, he told me my dancing was good even though that was the biggest lie anyone had told me all night. Then we went over and he asked me what I might like to drink, I told him he could choose for me because how would I know what these people drink here. He had that nicely dressed bartender pour me this drink of something and said it had Vodka in it. Ed, please tell me what Vodka is because more than one person drank it I think."

Along an untouched street, two sets of footprints left a path in a thin bed of lightly fallen snow. The powder continued to drift carelessly down around the two pedestrians walking without care for common street sense. The flakes played beneath the lamplight that lined the sides of the road, uninterrupted by most life that should have been sound asleep at this 2AM hour.

Without wind, and without the nasty, bitter bite of cold that had come and gone since they had arrived, Ed and Winry chose to take the 20 minute walk to Dr. Wilson's flat, as opposed to imposing on any of the overly-intoxicated lingering partygoers. It had taken a bit of time to sort through the disaster of garments that had accidentally exploded from the constant coming and goings of attendants, but they had found their own clothing and were finally able to free themselves from all the constraints they'd put up with for the evening. Bundled in their coats and decorated in borrowed scarves, mitts and hats, they had made their way through a slumbering city.

Though, it was not exactly a quiet stroll.

"It's a Russian alcohol. Did you like it?"

"No, it was disgusting," Winry tossed her loose, waist-length blonde hair over her shoulders as she swung her body about in rejection of the drink, "but everyone else seemed to and I drank it anyways to be polite. You know it started to taste better after I'd had it a few times; either that or I got used to how bad it tastes. I can't imagine why everyone willingly orders something so nauseating, I don't understand it at all."

Again Ed bobbed his head, "It's an acquired taste."

"Nearly all of the drinks people gave me had some additive that tasted bad. They seem to have a lot of these 'acquired tastes'," Winry's sentences ran on in single breaths, "like their taste in clothing. I cannot figure out how all those women WILLINGLY wore those dresses. I was horrified when I found out that it was actually fashion."

"You sure didn't like that dress…"

"I'd never been so happy to be naked in all my life."

Ed's hand escaped his pocket slapped over his face.

"You know what else I noticed Ed," he figured it was Winry's hundredth analysis of the night, the vast majority coming to light in the last 20 minutes, "I am the only person who calls you 'Ed', everyone says 'Edward'. There has not been a single person in London and I don't think too many in Germany who called you 'Ed'. Why does everyone call you 'Edward'?"

Giving a slow exhale into the sub zero air, Ed watched as his white breath slowly dispersed, "I have no idea."

The two walked at a pace that, despite their uneven styles, moved in time with the other. While Winry pranced herself around in disorderly strides, Ed constantly remained a stride or two behind, finding that his constant pace somehow never fell behind or overtook Winry's path.

"Ah!"

The exaggerated finger point of the intoxicated flatmate caught Ed's attention.

"At the end of the block, that's Mr. Wilson's, isn't it?"

Indeed, beyond this crossroad of North to South and East to West was the house; unlit in the silent night, lightly dusted in this powder white like all its neighbours. Tight family dwellings lined the path to it, and the path from it. The left side of the street seemed to mirror the right and the place at the end of the street had nothing to distinguish itself from the rest in that block.

"Yeah."

Crushing the fine dusting of snow beneath her feet, Winry spun on her toes to face the straggler, "Before we go home Mr. Elric, I want to make sure you know that I am disappointed you didn't dance with me, or anyone else for that matter."

"I don't dance, Winry," he said with the shake of his head.

"I'm also disappointed that you haven't said more than four words to me since we left. You say 'yeah' or 'that's nice Winry' or give some generic response to my question. I'm trying to hold a conversation with you and you are almost as unwilling as you were to dance. Are you mad at me? Did something set off the great Alchemist Edward Elric?"

"I'm listening."

The response was frank and given not as a response to the question, but as a statement of fact.

"What was the last thing I said?" came the challenge beneath the nearly weightless whiteness floating down around them.

"That I'm ignoring you."

"Before that."

"That everyone calls me Edward."

"… Before that!"

Ed sighed, "You asked about Vodka."

"Why are you listening?" Winry tossed the question into the air, suddenly more confused over why he was listening than not ignoring her.

The longer Ed took to respond, the longer his gaze was lost in the street, examining the darkened windows beyond which people slept, the more Winry realized why it took him so long to respond.

Ed glanced over his shoulder, examining the haphazard path they'd woven to end up at such a crossroad, "You know, Al and I used to walk for hours. Sometimes it felt like days. Al talked constantly, he loved to hear the sound of his own voice – he said it made him feel real. Oddly enough, this side of the Gate is so much louder than ours, but no one says anything I really want to listen to, can relate to or even care about, so I just ignore it. It's nothing but noise. The journey from A to B is just a waste of 30 minutes of my life that I won't get back."

Winry's hands, tucked away in the blue and white knit mittens she had borrowed, held onto the jacket buttons high at her chest, her arms folded in front of her body for warmth. Silent, beneath the sky floating freely around her and surrounded by the flickering streetlights, Winry had been granted a position in life that Alphonse and Edward had always been worried about letting her have. She looked back at the man who spoke in the most backwards way, and despite an endless night of alcohol, she slowly translated a profound compliment.

"Didn't you want to go on a walk?"

"I did?" She blinked at Ed's sudden statement.

He nodded, "Back in Germany. You said you wanted to go for a walk somewhere and find something different."

Winry's brow rose as Ed's hand lifted and chose a street path that was neither the way they came nor the way they should have headed.

"We can walk that way for a while if you like."

How was London this horrible place that Ed claimed it to be? Did he imagine all that? This place was not home, that was for certain, but of everywhere she'd been thus far, London had been everything Munich hadn't, "Alright."

What Winry could not get out of the conversation, and what the bubbling intoxication prevented her from getting near, was how that walk had gone from A to B with Edward's ear locked into the conversation at hand and not feverishly thrashing about in the dead of night - searching for, but terrified to find something... anything. He'd been balancing so dangerously on edge, he knew it had shown up in his temper, and it had nearly drowned him in exhaustion not long ago. He either slept endlessly, or not at all - his minds eye was cruel to him. His imagination was worse - because it had fuel, from atrocities he'd seen and experienced first hand. Then there were all of the 'what if's.

There would be no discussing it, and he would do everything in his power to prevent the world from seeing it, but he'd questioned himself from time to time: was he simply concerned for his own safety and those around him, or absolutely paranoid? Be damned if he'd allow an outside party give him the answer.

But, this.

This had been the most enjoyable conversation he hadn't taken part in. Twenty minutes of his life taken away by a voice that was almost as familiar as his own, going on and on about nothing at all. Without reason, in a place he didn't like, but didn't fear either, the sound had tossed away the worries he'd carried on his back.

As far as Edward was concerned, they could walk around the block until the sun came up.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

There has been a long gap between the previous chapter and this.

Apology is given where one is due. I stopped writing the story for a number of reasons, one of them was how I'd found I was directing the plot, it was leading towards things I don't think I wanted and I wasn't able to change the direction of where my thoughts were going. So, I stopped and stepped away to "clear my head" so to speak, and I apologize for leaving you hanging. I'm glad did that, because the things that had been frustrating me have left. The big kicker, however, was most likely the stress from graduating school poisoned my muse, horribly distracted me, then my muse did not follow me to Japan, and it didn't re-surface until I unearthed my desktop computer in January. So now that I'm back home, I'm settled in my own place without interruption, I seem to be able to concentrate and my crazy imagination is running away on me. I love when that happens it's exciting.

So I apologize for treating my readers with such poor respect, but I don't think I realized why I'd turned up my nose at the story until recently. If you're still reading, thank you so much for putting up with me. I hope you enjoy the next installments of the story.

**Story Notes:**

I felt bad asking AmunRa to beta after having such a long absence. It's kind of like that rude family member that shows up without warning and expects to stay the night ;. Zrana and UmiMikazuki spoke up and volunteered to read over the chapter! Thank you!

If I do any temperature referencing, I'm doing so in Celsius, and not Fahrenheit.

Heh, I just generally felt "out of shape" writing this chapter after so long. I hope it's not too noticeable that it's been a year since I last wrote!

I think that's it for now!

Thank you!


	24. Nobody's Heroine

**Chapter 75 - Nobody's Heroine (Part XXIV)**

With a dull thump, the bundle of dirty clothes landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairwell. Taking clumps of fabric into each hand, Winry hiked up her dress as she stomped down the stairs. Having gone searching through the suitcases for a pair of missing socks, she had unearthed the weekend attire that had been ignored on Sunday by everyone but her. That Sunday morning after the party she had been the first one to take a shower, the first one to dress, the first one to wash her clothes and the first one to kick the rest of the house into existence. She felt fine, so why were they ignoring life?

Hohenheim had given a hearty laugh when Ed balked at Winry's cheerful 'hung-over' demeanour.

On Monday morning, Winry'd come to the sad realization that no man in this house had done any laundry. Why did she get the feeling she was going to be the one to take care of this? Like hell she was going to do _their_ laundry. They were all over twenty, two of them were old enough to be her father, and they could do it themselves.

But, she'd give them a subtle reminder to behave like mature adults by leaving it in the middle of the floor.

As for this particular day, she was a little bit annoyed with Ed's morning behaviour. He'd gone out and told her to stay behind. She sincerely hated how it felt like she was being treated like a child not old enough to cross the street. He was just going to the district market, for goodness sake. It was a short drive from the Wilson house, and she could walk there in under half an hour – heck it might not even take 20 minutes.

Maybe he just wanted some time to himself. That's understandable, but maybe it was the tone of voice was using. He'd been doing it far too often lately, and even though she understood what brought it out, she wished he wouldn't use his commanding tone on her. The world was not as scary as he wanted her to think!

Winry scowled at the pile of laundry in the middle of the floor.  
_  
Don't you dare touch that, Winry Rockbell; you are not a maid or a house wife._

There wasn't enough time for her to conjure up something else to focus on before an external force answered her plea for a change of activity. Grinning, she narrowed an eye at the ringing telephone at the end of the hallway.

Reaching a fine hand down to grab the receiver, Winry suddenly stopped.  
_  
Wait, what do I say? 'Thank you for calling Dr. Charles Wilson's, Winry speaking.'? That sounds secretarial and contrived._

Winry glanced around quickly as the phone continued to ring.  
_  
If I just say 'hello' they might hang up, because no one knows who I am. Phone calls can't be cheap, whoever is calling won't want to talk to someone they don't know for too long if they think it's a wrong number._

Twice more, the ringing bell of the rotary telephone sounded and Winry stared down at the noisy black device trying to get her undivided attention. She reached out her hand to grab it…

Her head suddenly dropped, as did her hand, when she realized that she'd let the phone ring until it had gone silent.

"Dammit!"

She spun on her heels, an eye viciously narrowed at the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. She would kick it across the room if it would make her feel better. With blazing annoyance at herself and the dirty, stinking laundry, she thundered back towards the mess, only to find herself scrambling back to the telephone as it began ringing once again.

Winry fumbled the handset in her fingers as she snatched it up, finally slapping it to her ear, "Um… Charles Wilson's home, Winry speaking!"

Well, it was going to sound strange no matter how she answered the phone.

"Hello?"

Winry's reaction softened as she glanced at the phone piece in her hand, unprepared to hear a little boy's voice coming through the other end.

"Excuse me?"

"Hi, this is Winry," she adjusted the tone of voice to something much more fitting for a child's world than an adult's.

"Hello this is Harold, I'm with the General Post Office. I would like to know if there is an Edward Elric at the address for this phone number."

Pausing, Winry tried to associate an age to the voice. The boy couldn't have been more than ten years old. What was he doing working at a post office?

"Yes there is, but he's not home right now, can I take a message?"

Wait a minute. Why is there a package for Ed?

"Yes please, Ma'am."

She shuddered, something about the way the boy said 'Ma'am' made her feel like the child's grandmother. Other people called her Ma'am, but it felt more stylish like 'Madame'. This little boy's words were just painful.

"Can you tell him that there is a package for him at the district post office? We will hold it for two weeks before discarding it."

Lost in confusion, Winry gave an affirmative response to the child, dearly hoping that Ed knew where that was and how to get there. Yet the more she thought about it, the more questions she had for this poor child.

"Is it normal for visitors to receive phone calls telling them they've gotten packages?"

"No, Ma'am, but my supervisor asked me to call. The gentleman who dropped it off made the request that it be picked up rather than delivered and printed the phone number on the package."

That was odd. Then again, this could be perfectly normal for this world. She had no idea either way, but pushed a little more, "Who's the package from?"

"I apologize Ma'am, but I didn't see the person who left it at our outlet. Perhaps it's fragile. I apologize if it's a great inconvenience. It can be delivered if you request."

"Well, it's not an inconvenience, I don't think," Winry scratched her head, mulling over the conversation, "but if we have two weeks, knowing Ed we'll be in there today if not tomorrow. Can you tell me who the sender is?"

A pause came, and she could hear the boy fumble with something; assumingly it was the package, "There isn't one, Ma'am."

The answer caught Winry off guard and again she left the young man dangling in her silence. A mystery package? With no sender? For _Ed_?

"Okay, thanks for the call. We'll be by to pick it up."

"Have a good afternoon!"

The call ended at that, and Winry found herself standing in the hall, staring at the silent, black handset that had given her today's great mystery. This was far more interesting than waiting around to bark at Ed to clean his clothes.

Dropping the handset down into its cradle, Winry darted back through the house, ascending the staircase in record time. She may not know where the post office was, but she knew Ed was in the market, and if she knew Ed, he'd want that package from a mystery sender before everything closed at four. It was only half past one that afternoon, and there was still plenty of time.

* * *

In a hall, flooded in coarse black, beneath the burning spotlight crushing down from above, the exact location of individuals and where their voices came from was uncertain. Each distinct voice hid within the vast echo, but their power, their ferocity, and their prowess was unmistakable.

It was true; actors besieged by spotlights could not see their audience.

Stern, broad shoulders held the weight of the mammoth light at bay, as Lieutenant Havoc found his hand twitching, unable to fondle his favourite cigarette between his lips, let alone his fingers.

By now it must have been the fourth hour he'd sat there, upon a sorry excuse for a wooden stool. He'd never caught much scuttlebutt about internal military interrogations, but he was on his way to being the focal point of the one developing around him. Certainly, there were lies that he had to hold in trust, fabricated for the safety of many people that he held in far greater regard than anyone in this room; however, it was the insults upon his life, his person, and his family that caused his jaw to grind. The constant assault set up to trip his tongue had slowly worn at his patience.

The missing Market Place reports, Klose and her father's missing statements, the unknown location of Brigadier General Mustang and Major Hawkeye, and the bizarre paperwork that lead to Broche's transfer came up endlessly. The private investigation into Izumi and the disclosure of Winry had become a hot topic early, and did nothing but hinder his credibility and inflame the words thrown at him. It was annoying, if not infuriating, how his interrogators seemed to think he was the best suspect for explaining away Winry. He had, of course, offered the girl a ride to Central Headquarters from the library a fair time before she'd vanished, and that became fuel to create suspicion that he somehow had knowledge of her whereabouts.

Once in a while, a door could be heard as men came and went. Though it was the moments after one particular door closed and silence embedded into the living darkness once again that caught the Lieutenant by surprise.

"Four years, seven months ago, Lieutenant, you led an intimate relationship with the lead switchboard operator on the first floor, Melinda Dy, is that correct?"

"Yes," the response was forthright, still having no idea where the conversation was headed.

The same voice stepped in again, "Your separation was of mutual, reasonable, rational consent, correct?"

"Yes, Sir." _Why?_

"Did you keep in contact with her after your separation?"

Havoc's eyes narrowed further beneath the light, "I would see her in passing each week. We exchange courtesies. She did run the _switchboard_, it's not like I could avoi-"

"When was the last time you spoke with her?"

The words in this charade echoed in the dark abyss, "A couple of weeks ago?"

This time, it was a new voice taking up a chord in the chorus of black noise, cutting Havoc's statement short, "And since she stepped away from that position, have you been made aware of her current assignment?"

The entire line of questioning was ridiculous as far as Havoc was concerned. Could they not get to the point? "During decommissioning over the winter, she was removed from the military roster and transferred upon request into Federal Government Services. I'm not aware of her exact position, we've never discussed it," rolling his eyes, his tone filled with exasperation, "she said something about getting more pay."

"Lieutenant, I would request that you provide us with a means of confirming the validity of your telephone records so we may verify your most recent contacts."

It had been the first time in hours where the officer's jaw was loosened by the influx of confusion, "Central Headquarters keeps record of the lines and numbers for incoming and outgoing calls, my telephone records aren't something that my office produces but Communications or the switchboard will be able to provide those."

What an absurd question, why was he being asked to provide phone records? They should have those already. Especially if they suspected that he was not an honours student in the class of honesty. If they were suspicious, they would have expected him to have tampered with them in some way – which was not entirely wrong, but certainly not a part of the bigger issue. Was this some sort of ploy? If so, what could the reason behind it possibly be? The incursion of shifting sheets of paper caught his ear without warning.

Again, the paper shuffle emerged again, and the dark silence had a very ominous sign of life, "Officer, your phone records were recently seized from Communications and placed in the parliamentary division of the highest ranking government officials awaiting review. They were left in trust upon the desk of Assistant Secretary to the Prime Minister, Melinda Dy. Upon request of these documents, Miss Dy could no longer produce your telephone records. Can you explain?"

Had there been a cigarette between his dried lips, it would have tumbled to the cold, cement floor.

They couldn't possibly think… were they making this up? He had nothing to do with this woman, and she owed him nothing. What were they trying to catch him on? Truth or fabrication, the statement was damming. He had no information on this card they played – if it was a bluff how was he supposed to play it? What would it catch him on? But, if this was true, who dipped their hands into the affair? What were they trying to do, incriminate him further?

"Officer, would you care to explain why a woman in association with you would be suddenly unable to produce the necessary documentation?"

If documents that stood for his credibility were missing, Havoc could only assume they were missing to make him a liability within the armed forces. The pieces of a puzzle slowly took the form of a scapegoat.

This time it was Havoc, burning silently beneath the white light, that initiated the sickening silence.

"Lieutenant?"

"I-" harshly, the officer cleared his throat, "I have no idea why Miss. Dy could not produce the telephone documentation you requested. You would have to ask her."

The affirmative response was preempted by silence, a dead tone in the black vortex sucking the air from Havoc's lungs. He might not see daylight again for a long time.

* * *

This was stupid.

Completely, utterly, stupid.

Winry could find no other words to describe it all. Sure, a wider search of the vocabulary spectrum might help make the description more colourful, but she was content to curse stupidity.

Her own stupidity.

Frozen, mitt-covered hands patted her ears, hidden by the fur-lined hat that shielded them from the brisk evening breeze. The sun had vanished hours ago. Many hours before that, she should have been home.

She had no idea where she'd gone wrong. The certainty had always been there, with every stride she'd taken – she'd _known_ how to get to the market and how to get back. There was no one around who could explain to her how she'd ended up here, wherever 'here' was.

It was supposed to have been a twenty-minute walk to the market. There was no need for her entire menagerie to accompany her on a simple retrieval mission, mittens and toque were all she needed – she'd left her purse behind. If, for whatever reason, there had been something she needed, Ed would have covered for her. He was really assertive with that, so there was no need.

But, she was supposed to have found him.

Winry dragged her feet along the sidewalk, as she'd done all afternoon and through the evening, looking for some sign of where she could go. What she wanted more than anything was the blinking yellow sign to appear pointing her in the right direction, so she wouldn't have to ask how to find the residence of 'Doctor Charles Wilson' at address unknown.

The crowd had changed gradually, what had once been crowds of business men rushing to make it home to their wives was now a slightly less dense, but more vibrant flock of individuals: friends, couples and colleagues visiting the taverns and evening establishments. She wished nothing more than to have them ignore her, as the business crowd did.

The dense, cold air had sucked the power from her voice while she dangled from wit's end. Maybe it was a blessing that her feet had become so cold in the boots that she barely felt anything below her knees. Hours had passed where every step in these horrible feet-things called 'women's boots' had torn at her feet and ankles. She wished nothing more than to go barefoot in the snow.

Once again, Winry stood beneath a sign she'd seen in her journey previously: Police. She hadn't stopped in at another station she'd seen – she did not have the courage to admit she'd screwed things up so badly. Things were different in the late evening, fear won her over and she pushed her way in.

"Good evening," came a male voice.

The nonchalant tone calmed Winry to an extent. Her eyes gazed around the dull facility, probably the most mundane location in the entire sector. Certainly, it didn't look like much of a police location, perhaps it was an outlet or community watch center. The room was unexciting; nothing beyond a trash can by the door, a cluster of chairs at the left wall near a telephone, bulletin boards and notices cluttering the right wall, and the desk plus office space ahead of her.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Um," Winry shuffled herself forwards to the man appearing down the room clad in official attire. The warm, indoor air stung her ears and the tingle made her shiver, "… I think I'm lost."

"A young lady as fair as you can't be too terribly lost around here," the voice finally came to life as Winry reached a busy wooden stand that was more counter than desk, "what's the name of the business you're looking for, Miss?"

"I'm not looking for any business around here. I'm trying to get home."

The initially playful tone of the man old enough to be her father changed to something more parental as he brushed his fingers over a thick, brown mustache, "Were the friends you went out with a little too much for you tonight? You should have looked into arranging transportation home if you were venturing out. Your parents have a telephone, correct? Do you want to call your family?"

"I—" the phone number was in the purse she didn't bring. Winry'd realized that hours ago and chosen to simply disregard the existence of the telephone so she could focus on options available rather than lamenting over ones that were not. "I don't have that with me. I'm staying with a family friend, I'm not from around here…" she couldn't pale, the warm air of the room had been surging into her face, maintaining the thick, heavy pink in her complexion.

"That would explain your peculiar accent," the officer cleared his throat, "who are you staying with?"

"Charles Wilson," she replied

The man laughed, though it was neither soothing, nor comforting; it merely filled the building space where she stood, "You say that as though I should know your companion."

With all her heart, she wished he did.

"London is a bit vaster than the credit you're giving it."

Entirely true, this city was a monster. Winry's feet would have her believe it went on forever.

"What's you're name, dear?"

"Winry Rockbell."

"Wendy Rockbell?"

"_Winry_, Sir," she shrank into her coat a little, wishing only to curl up and close her eyes in hopes that when she re-opened them, the nightmare would be over. She hurt.

"That is quite possibly the most unique name I've heard for a young lady in ages. Where are you visiting from?"

Winry closed her eyes and provided no answer.

"Miss?"

"… Sweden, maybe."

This story was not rehearsed. There was no 'home town' for her here. She could be explained away in Germany so easily since no one cared where in the English-speaking world she came from. But in the English-speaking world, she was most certainly not from Germany. The opportunity never presented itself for her to concoct a life history – at the time of travel, there were far more important things to worry about with Ed. Those issues aside, the need was not there. She was Edward Elric's companion, a friend of Hohenheim's son - an explanation that satisfied everyone she'd encountered so far.

And the night watchman laughed again. A painful sound that thundered around this hollow space of organization and legality like a pot tossed down a metallic staircase. This wasn't funny at all and there were no truths that could be given to clear the answers she could not give. With every question given came lies or dodges that devastated her credibility. There was no answer for these questions. Where were her parents? What city was she born in? When was her birthday? She had forgotten the year they were using. She was supposed to say she was 17 but she'd answered 16. Her year of birth made her 22.

It would be so easy to simply cry. Make the onslaught stop. She fought with herself to resist this pitiful urge: take the poor-girl's pathetic route and use tears to garner sympathy from a man who would not give it to her. She had done nothing to earn his pity.

"My feet hurt, may I sit down?"

In the middle of the interrogation, the request sputtered from her lips out without a prompt, much like how the feeling below her knees had exploded without warning.

"Take a seat."

Her knees ached as she worked de-thawing joints towards a lowly set of two wooden chairs against the white wall. Winry lowered herself into the seat and pulled her fingers free of the frozen, useless mittens. The soft tips of each digit had already begun to tingle from the warm air within the structure, and she fumbled a bit with the laced binding of her right boot.

She pulled the knee-high stocking off her right leg, exposing the wounded, flushed skin to the fresh air. It felt as though a layer of flesh had been peeled away, and she dropped the stocking to the ground with disgust. Winry cradled the battered and bruised foot upon her other knee, eyeing the damages done by blisters and cold elements. These boots were not industrial, nor were they comfortable or well fitted. Most certainly, the stiff, fabric casing her feet had been locked in were not meant for lengthy use, let alone hours upon hours of walking.

Though the chilled pink colour of her hands and feet were the same shade, her hands couldn't grip the foot to warm it. The chill stung the nerves in her hands and hurt her fingertips far more than the pain she could feel in her feet.

Winry's swept a run-away tear into to the puddle of melted ice and snow growing around her.

Placing the foot back to the floor and moving for her other boot, Winry startled as the officer minding the outlet reminded her of his presence. It was not what she'd expected after the vicious sarcasm he'd thrown around about her minutes earlier. A hand towel landed across an arm and her knee – before it could tumble into the dirty puddle at her feet, Winry caught it. Wayward blue eyes gazed through the bars of fallen hair in her face.

"Wrap your foot and keep it warm. I'll take a peek through our back room for a basin; some warm water would work better than cloths. Take off your coat; we'll hang it for a bit – it'll do you no good to sit around wrapped in something keeping the chill in. I'm certain there's a woolen blanket tucked away somewhere for you. How long did you say you'd been wandering around?"

Winry didn't know if she was supposed to reply and could only manage to fumble uneasily with the cloth handed to her.

"At least answer me that, child," the officer reached for the towel he'd tossed, but recoiled once Winry reacted, "how long have you been outside?"

"It was sometime after noon."

"It might have been wiser of you to have mentioned something about this when you first walked through the door," the officer's sigh reminded Winry of a sound Hohenheim had given Ed more times than she could count, "first, we'll take care of you. I can't have you expiring before I find out why on God's green Earth you're so full of nonsense. Is that agreeable?"

She nodded, uncertain if she could coherently voice gratitude at this point. Standing for a moment, she shed the iced winter coat and turned it over to the authority figure, quickly returning to the damp seat she had occupied.

Despite all of her ill-fated and poorly conceived attempts at foolish deception, the solitary individual in charge of this little space in the world left a warm handprint on her shoulder as he passed her and vanished into the hall beyond. Winry wrapped her arms around her stomach as she sat in silence. Her ears listened for anything – a clock, people outside, the officer in the back – but heard nothing beyond the sound of the cold water dripping off the ends of fabric hanging off her body.

Curling forwards, Winry placed her forehead upon her knees and waited for the companion to return.

* * *

"The sooner we head back to Central, the better," Riza quickly turned her glance over to her superior, certain of the affirmative response. Her statement was firm and blunt, a stark contrast to the atmosphere within the walls.

Lazily dumped in the wooden chair, attempting to disguise his confusions and frustrations with a careless expression, Roy gave the expected nod, "I'll sleep easier when I find out what is going on behind my back."

Maria had finally rejoined the military duo at the table, lying her arms against the wooden edge, "We could leave Brigitte with Izumi. I don't know just how long my records for the last few weeks will remain secure if Hakuro is looking through things."

Tossing his gaze into the empty room where two children had once loitered, Mustang's thoughts again crossed with the wayward child, "She'll remain with you, Lieutenant, indefinitely. I don't want her accidentally ending up somewhere where she can be recognized. The girl's departure occurred after we had left Central, so it distances you from the situation. The fact that we never had any intention to be in this location in the first place bodes well for your situation as opposed to ours," Roy's head nodded slowly with his train of thought as it blistered down the tracks, "as you mentioned shortly after we returned, there is no paper trail leading to this location, since the deed to this cabin isn't legally in your family's possession. Once we've returned, if it needs to be done, I'll take care of your record myself."

From beyond the sealed screen door to the porch, Izumi grunted out a sigh – a deliberate attempt to make sure she would catch their attention, "So, now that you have everyone's lives and fates mapped out in your imagination, I can't wait to hear the plans for myself and Alphonse? What will you do?"

Mustang's dark eyes turned over to the intrusive voice, watching Izumi's figure turn and re-enter the building. She had been an oversized fly on the wall for hours. Until that moment, she had not intruded, but she had made her presence clear: ensuring her silhouette remained visible beyond the waving curtain, minding her own business in the kitchen preparing nothing more than odds and ends, flipping lazily through the odd book she'd produced and entertained herself with in a chair at the corner of the room. She had deliberately kept herself within earshot.

"There's no choice in the matter, he has to return with us," Riza answered before Roy could, delaying the objection that was charging within the room like a raging mammoth, "Gracia Hughes is his legally assigned guardian until you return to Central and explain your actions. That said, Alphonse's over due to return home as it is."

"You certainly have no idea, but I'd bet your last coin that Alphonse is not a concern for that family at the moment," strolling through the room and up to the table in the kitchen were everyone gathered, Izumi ran her finger around the rim of the coffee cup she had abandoned more than an hour ago, before latching her finger onto the ring and snatching it off the table. The cold cup came to her lips, taking a slow step away from the table, "Unfortunately, Alphonse will not be making a return trip to Central with you. I'm certain you're resourceful enough to deal with that."

Mustang's voice struck with the thunderous impact Izumi had been expecting, "_Unfortunately_, there are too many problems for too many parties if Alphonse is to be left in your care. The majority of the problems stem from your disappearance in the first place and it is something you are going to have to resolve on a formal stage."

Heads slowly rose and eyes came into focus upon the woman standing in nothing but black leggings and shirt.

"Izumi, you understand, don't you, that we can't go back to Central without Alphonse," Maria said, turning around as best she could in her chair to look at the woman straight on, "the longer he's away, the more problems the Hughes family is going to have. We don't want to leave them with that. We can't leave them like that, everything will get blown out."

As though it had been deliberate, Izumi's initial response to Maria's plea was nothing more than an entertaining slurp from her coffee mug. The table of three was left sitting beneath the brewing clouds.

"The fact that I can't make a public appearance in Central is beside the point, because I know no one at your table is ignorant enough not to understand what I mentioned to Mr. Mustang the other night," Izumi's eyes cast over the crowd, inspecting their reactions. So he had discussed Dante with them before she'd begun monitoring the conversation after all.

"Then find a way cope with your actions a little longer," there would be no way Mustang would allow this woman to so badly screw up what was going on in Central, even if it was starting to unravel. The last thing he wanted to do was set the Hughes family in a position like this, and with what little blind faith he possessed, he'd placed it in Gracia's care to take mind the disguise of Alphonse's whereabouts.

Slipping out behind the fluttering curtains, Izumi placed her coffee cup down on the wooden porch railing. She could feel it, the eyes of everyone in that room still watching her from beyond the sheer, white drapery. Grappling with a side of the story that was a privilege all her own, Izumi took a moment to debate if there was no way to put off dropping a bomb any longer.

"Regardless if you return to Central with or without Alphonse, I doubt you'll receive a warm welcome."

"Why?"

Izumi shook her head, looking out to the rising sun's reflection off the lake top, "If a few things went right, Gracia Hughes and her daughter aren't in Central anymore, and they haven't been for a while."

"WHAT!"

There was that monstrous sound again, more earth shattering than before. All Izumi could do was shake her head, "So there hasn't been anyone to cover for you. If anything, they're trying to figure out where she's gone. And when two officers return with Alphonse, it's going to look a little out of place; I'm sure there'll be questions," she could hear it; those pounding feet were moving for her. Izumi slid herself out of the way of the door in preparation for an explosion, "That is, if they don't think you have something to do with it already."

The frame of the screen door nearly shattered in the window tracks as Mustang threw it open, "What the hell do you think you're doing? How do you know the family isn't in Central?"

"The moment I spoke with Alphonse and realized others had become involved I removed them from harms harm's way, especially considering who they were," her words were nothing but a backhanded lash across his face, "obviously you had no idea who and what you were dealing with."

"With out consulting anyone? Without bothering to inform me? Confer with me?" the brigadier general's voice stampeded forwards, "did you bother to even consider the consequences for anyone?"

In dull contrast to Mustang's rampage, Izumi's tone was flat and unwavering; doing nothing but agitating the man whom she refused entertain with her own screams, "the consequences were the only thing that mattered at that point, that's why they were removed. And like I said, you had no ide-"

"ENOUGH OF THAT!" Mustang bellowed, "if I am missing something then why the hell aren't you TELLING me?"

Mustang's reaction stopped Izumi. She had debated for some time just how much information he was entitled to, how much he could understand, and how much she was willing to part with. Knowledge was powerful, if not dangerous. The lack of respect she derived solely from the officers' line of work had kept her distant and skeptical. Strangely enough, it was how Mustang's explosion came across that had her attention, an informal request for knowledge was laced into the words.

The flame, situated just beneath a boiling pot, lowered a bit.

"If there's more I need to know, why aren't you forthcoming with it?" Mustang lashed out, "You seem to think that the fact I've escorted Alphonse through the countryside, at his request, in order to help solve the mystery he's chasing makes our presence here irrelevant. Myself and my colleagues have stakes in this matter, be it directly or indirectly whether you choose to accept it or not," his eyes slit, and jaw held tight for the thunderous sound of his voice. Izumi listened as Mustang made sure everyone was fully aware that the situation was something he was done playing around with, "I may already have my hands full with several people working behind my back, so I obviously did not come out here so that you could treat me as your little puppet and orchestrate my world to your convenience as well. By this point, I don't need to guess that 'Dante' is something formidable enough that you can't afford to do, regardless of your well stated dislike of our occupations."

Mustang held his outburst for a moment, watching the woman look back at him without any type of visible reaction. His head was hot, and expression tight, allowing a moment for the dust to settle in his sandstorm.

"However, I came out here because there is a young man I have known for a long time who's asked for my assistance to find information on his brother. There is another person beyond Dante connecting all of this," a level of calmness resurfaced in Mustang's voice, "Regardless if you are willing to accept that Dante may require more than a solitary effort on your part or not, can you at least accept that Alphonse's request to investigate Edward Elric is the reason we are here in this room with a common issue at hand?"

It was not the tirade she had expected. Her skills were never put into question, or her ability to handle the situation alone, both issues she thought he would raise. Though loud, it had been entirely diplomatic. The ball lay motionless in Izumi's court, waiting for her to pick up the points she'd dropped.

Much to her chagrin, Edward had gotten lost in all this nonsense, and he had been the catalyst for the adventure. Perhaps it was time to re-focus the scenario a little.

"I asked the Tlingum boys to look after the Hughes'. I didn't give specifics for where they should go, that judgment is theirs to make. I simply told them that Rizembool and Xenotime are not options," Izumi's cup returned to her lips.

"And?"

There had to be more. Much more. Novels more. Mustang was certain of it. He was involved with the entire situation whether anyone, including himself, wanted him to be involved or not. He had dragged himself in inadvertently, and was subsequently hauled deeper inside; she must be able to see that by this point they could not go their separate ways.

"Isn't it said that everyone involved with the Philosopher's Stone will perish? Something along those lines?" stepping past Mustang, Izumi swept the curtains aside with the wave of her hand and returned inside, "That's only true because Dante ensures that the philosophy remains true. So, we'll leave tomorrow like you suggested, before the military trolls hunting you down find us here. During the course of our stroll tomorrow, you can let me know if you still think traipsing into Central like officers is still a good idea."

Mustang raised an eyebrow at the phrasing of the response.

* * *

It had been over a month, but it already felt like she'd lived through a lifetime. This world moved a mile a minute. Today was November 9th, 1921 – that's what she'd seen on the cover of the newspaper she'd read to keep her mind occupied. She could understand the day well enough, it felt like winter; however, it was the year that always caught her off guard. Until she'd picked up that paper, Winry'd never had a reason to pay attention to the calendar, what week it would become or what days were ahead. The only date that she marked off in her mental calendar was September 18th, because that was the date on this side of the Gate when she'd crossed over.

Nearly two months. Almost eight weeks. Fifty-two days.

Winry hadn't kept track until then. That morning, when the officer handed her a newspaper, she'd made the mistake of acknowledging the date printed on it. With her mind falling out of control, she really wished she hadn't.

It was almost 10am now, and she didn't really know how much longer she could loiter around this place, considering the previous night's watchman had gone off shift, and had been replaced by someone slightly less compassionate.

"Young lady, you're slower than molasses in January. Quit your dallying and be on your way!"

"I'm sorry, Sir," she threw in as much sarcasm as she could muster, "my feet seem to have swollen from these boots so it's a little hard to get them back on. I would _greatly_ appreciate your patience."

He snorted, "You've worn my patience thin as it is."

"My apologies," she mumbled before reaffirming in her mind that she'd much preferred the man from the night before.

They spent an hour or so tending to her cold self, which she was entirely grateful for. Her feet were now littered with spot-bandages, they'd put alcohol on the hand she'd scratched up during the day when she'd fallen to the cement, and eventually the water she'd dipped her feet into had revived them. Shortly there after, she'd ended up tipped over on the chair next to her, and came back to life when the door chimes sounded at 7:30 in the morning, or so. Her jacket, stockings, boots, mittens and hat hung in the corner, drained of the chill that had once manifested itself. They were nearly dry by now.

The man who'd helped her thus far, someone she felt disappointed she'd never caught the name of, had brought her the bun and orange juice she'd taken in. He was kind enough to reorganize his approach to their discussions. Only minutes before he was relieved of his position, he was able to find a phone number for Winry – the phone number to the hospital Charles Wilson was at. She'd known where he worked, at least. The officer called on her behalf, and the receptionist had put him through to Wilson's division, and it was then Winry received some vindication. The woman recognized her name, but could not provide the doctor himself – he was not in this morning.

It wasn't until then that Winry remembered the party for Patricia's grandfather – and the endless social invites. Both Hohenheim and the doctor had accepted invites out of town for a few days during the week to catch up with old acquaintances; she hadn't cared enough to inquire too heavily into the details. Guilt sat heavy in her stomach, wondering if she'd screwed up their plans, and they'd stayed home to look for her.

The receptionist was not forthcoming with the doctor's home address, which made sense; Winry would probably have to walk in there herself to ask for it. But what she was able to obtain far exceeded what she'd had previously: both the location of the hospital and phone number for Wilson's house.

A black stain on her excitement came when no one answered the phone at Dr. Wilson's house, it rang endlessly or until the operator would step in and tell her that she could not connect. Each disconnection nearly made her sick, but she refused to let that stall things. What it must mean was that everyone was out looking for her. Yes, that must be it.

In the meantime, Winry's information was left with the receptionist, along with a request for the receptionist to call the doctor, and let him know about the situation.

Within ten minutes of the final phone call, Winry felt like she'd been kicked out of the building. The officer who'd helped her was off shift, late at that, and had left for home. The one who took his place, an older, balding, heftier man, took a look at Winry, got as little personal information out of her as she'd disclosed previously, and decided that she no longer needed to loiter in this building – it was not a hospice after all.

"Do you have the address and phone number on you?"

Darting her eyes back over to the man tossed lazily in his chair behind the counter, Winry gave a nod, "It's in my pocket."

"Don't be letting that fall out for any reason. You may end up in far greater hot water than you find yourself in already."

Though sleeping poorly and feeling sore from head to toe, the sleep had obviously repaired some of her demeanour. However, everything about this man's speech pattern made her want to gnaw holes in the collar of her jacket, "Your concern is appreciated, thank you. And if it makes you feel better, I did take the information down twice."

An eye lifting from the newspaper he'd confiscated from her, the man inquired further, "Did you put it under your hat?"

Sliding her wool-knit mittens over her fingers, Winry's hands came down on her chest, "I put it down my shirt where it will stay safe and warm. Good day, Sir!"

Rolling her eyes and flicking a few fingers in careless farewell, Winry marched herself out the door.

Society gave her a grace today: the weather was far more pleasant and warm than the day before and the sky was crystal clear to boot.

Her eyebrows snuck out from beneath the fur-trimmed lining of her toque, pushing together in a determined frown. She would not think of her situation, she simply had to look ahead. And she knew that the destination for the hospital was west. Concentrate on that, on only that, and don't worry about what might or might not happen. Don't worry about what everyone is thinking, doing, or not doing right now.

Could she walk to this place in a day? 'Most certainly' was the answer, in a few hours time if she walked swiftly.

And she marched off into the city yet again, with a refocused head on her shoulders, but taking the longest way possible to get home.

* * *

"Wha—" Alphonse never finished as her hand clamped shut over his mouth. Laying flat on his back, dressed only in the shorts he slept in upon his bed, the young Elric stared into the dead of night. He had been so immersed in sleep that the sudden wake up sent his heart racing and senses on alert. Slowly, his eyes dropped to his side, eyeing the girl dressed in a baby-doll night top and shorts crouched on his mattress like a cat ready to pounce – though one paw already silenced him.

Alphonse waited for her to look at him, but her eyes were trained across the room. She was listening, he could tell. Finally, Brigitte's hand released, and from Alphonse's mouth to her lips, a single finger rose requesting silence. She slid herself off the bed to the floorboards beneath them. Sliding himself from the bed sheets with as much grace he could give, Al joined her, both lowering their heads to remain hidden beneath the top edge of the mattress.

Al looked to her finally, eyes demanding an explanation, if any could be given. A finger landed on his nose, and the young man could only respond with a lost gaze back to her. Wiggling her nose, Brigitte encouraged him to give a sniff of the air around them. She continued the motion, as Alphonse attempted to identify whatever Brigitte was encouraging him to recognize.

There was _something_ in the air.

Without a word, Brigitte grabbed his arm and as low as the pair could go on two feet, they hustled to the bedroom door.

Al's eyes widened in alarm and his fists tightened. He recognized the faint odour – it was gasoline.

Her free hand on the door handle, Brigitte slowly pulled it open. Both stepped out of the way of the ill moonlight filtering in from a hall.

Alphonse's thoughts drifted to the other rooms, Ms. Ross must be awake since both she and Brigitte had laid claim to the main room, but what about his teacher, Ms. Hawkeye, and Mr. Mustang? Whatever the reason was that the house carried a thin odour of gasoline and Brigitte was on her toes, the others had to be awake. But, if the hall was clear, why wasn't Brigitte stepping out?

Al's next gesture was to exit the room, but Brigitte vigorously shook her head. Responding with a sour stare, his female companion flustered and let her arms dance around her sides without giving a clear response.

Finally, Brigitte simply took him by the hand once more, and skittered out into the hall. Bare feet left the tiniest of sounds as the two slowed their pace and peered out into the darkened main room of the cabin. Looking back down the hall, Alphonse eyed the closed doors where others slept. He stepped back, moving towards the room where Izumi slept.

Brigitte turned when Al's fingers slipped out of her grasp, and she swung an arm back in attempt to grab him. He'd moved too far.

Their thoughts were broken by the sound of six bullets thumping out through the dull beat of a silencing device. Neither child screamed.

Both dropped to the floor, scrambling upon hands and knees to get away from the sound locked behind one of the doors. Pushed into the wall at the end of the hall Alphonse came to rest, having nowhere further to go. Brigitte fumbled her way into the main room the hall opened up into – a wide, open space with no solid object to duck behind. The kitchen could shield her presence, but provide no escape if someone moved in – at least there was the patio window to run through.

"Woah." The universal sound for 'stop' rose up, drawn out casually, without concern.

A door on each side of the four-room hall opened, releasing two figures.

"Look at what was flushed out."

Each child sat frozen, unmoving: Brigitte with her back to the situation and Alphonse sitting, looking up at the intruders, his back pressed against the wall.

The moment the taller of the two, with his partially buttoned shirt, jeans cut off and tattered above the ankles, and revolver holster attached to his belt, turned to look him straight in the eye, Alphonse realized, without a doubt, he knew them.

"Do you recall a little girl being a part of the picture?" asked the accomplice, not turning back to see the object in his partner's line of sight.

"Can't say as I do."

Alphonse's breath caught, hearing the sound of a cocked gun turn unto Brigitte, "Wait!"

"Shut it," the towering man addressing him turned his own piece to the Elric.

"Stop!"

Shielded by the dead of night, all parties moved at the third adult voice. Finally, each child screamed, and curled up where they lay. Three, maybe four shots rang out as each person reacted.

Curled up, her knees beneath her chest, and hands clasped over the back of her head, the silence was almost as lethal as a gunshot. Brigitte could hear no voices, no moving bodies, and no further trigger ready movements from within the room. Seconds passed like minutes, and when her imagination created a scenario of the madmen in the room training a pistol down upon her for execution, she peeked an eye into the room to stop her self-created nightmare. What she saw allowed her to loosen her hands and breathe once again.

Mustang stood, in button down nightshirt and light pants, somewhat disheveled in appearance; obviously he'd been startled from bed. The officer had stepped out into the open, from behind the wall shielding the kitchen space from the remainder of the cabin. His firearm was raised and ready, trained on the larger of two threatening Alphonse, though the weapons of both men met with Mustang.

Brigitte's gaze looked from Mustang the remaining figure tucked behind the wall.

"The boy is more valuable to her than the girl?"

"No," Mustang responded to the callous question, "he is my responsibility."

"Then, have your Major step out," came the order.

Mustang did not respond, his gaze merely looked back at the man, drenched in fierce distain.

"Explain what the girl on the floor is looking at," was the redirect.

Narrowing his eyes, Mustang's position was unwavering until he finally spoke, "Step out."

Her own weapon raised, the final figure remaining in the building stepped into the open. Her shoulders stiff and weapon clearly fixated on the remaining assailant, her feet slid her locked body into the room. She moved carefully, attempting to see how far she could get in positioning herself between the men and Brigitte at the middle of the floor. As Mustang's eye was locked on the situation, her blue eyes were as well, generating a clear vision within the night beyond the ends of brown hair fallen in her eyes.

Alphonse sat silent, his breath held. Mustang's heart must have stopped, he thought. The woman who'd stepped out next to him was _not_ Riza Hawkeye… it was Maria Ross.

"Major, Brigadier General, it appears whomever fires first will win."

Mustang paused upon hearing their response, taking a moment to ascertain the alternate direction the standoff had taken, "I guarantee someone in this room will remain."

The man Mustang had engaged retorted with a filthy, frightening sneer, "That guarantee means the Flame Alchemist knows better than to use his trademark tonight? No one in this room will satisfy your condition if you do."

"You're taking too much pleasure in the fact that I'm prepared to operate under your conditions," was Mustang's snide remark.

The intruders were right, there was no denying that. Though the level of fumes in the air would do nothing in a gun fight at this point, Mustang knew the moment he attempted to light a blaze the entire plot of land the group stood upon was at risk of exploding.

Again silence befell the room, no face clearly visible within the cabin, only the whites of eyes gazing between one and other carried the glow of moonlight partially covered by a mildly overcast night.

"Sir."

Alphonse's voice caught the attention of all, not expecting him to have spoken up. He had risen to his feet, though his back remained pressed to the wall. Bowing his head slightly, like a bull ready to charge, Al's hardened gaze carried out from beneath his brow.

"Both these men, I saw them in the Central Market before it exploded."

The shorter of two men, obviously second to the broad shouldered beast engaged with Mustang, turned his firearm from his female targets to focus on Mustang, leaving himself open and defenseless to the officer whose gun remained locked on him.

"They're also the men involved with the escapade at Shou Tucker's research facility," Mustang gave his response, "I do believe they've been assigned to us, in one way or another, for unfinished business purposes."

"The research facility was simply a matter of convenience," the senior of the two men turned his nose up at the statements, "but so we have everything clear, my division operates as eight-man cells. We are the first and second in the team, and for the most part, everyone else works from the outskirts. With that said, you have no way out. The rogue alchemist we had attempted to apprehend in Ishibal that subsequently joined your party was secured before we entered this building. The parameter of this building is secured as well. The backup you're thinking is available is unavailable. On my mark, this building will go up in flames. Something I'm certain you'd approve of."

All figures stood, unmoving and unfazed as the man directly engaged with Mustang changed targets. Lifting his weapon from the officer, the cold, dead sneer fell over Alphonse as the boy found himself unshielded, with nowhere to run.

"Look at your feet Alphonse, and close your eyes."

As the two men in the room laughed, bellowing at the cowardly request. Alphonse looked to Maria Ross, her position never changing between the second assailant and Brigitte, but the curl of confidence that hit her lips allowed the young man to abide by the request.

The sounds filling his ears painted a bloodstained picture in his mind's eye. Shattered glass, a single bullet fired by Mustang, and the raging scream of a man as more than one body hit the floor. If there had been any hesitation to abide by the request before, he most certainly did not want to backtrack now. It was as though he'd been asked not to watch the bloodshed.

In the end, it would Mustang's hand that took him away from it all.

This had been an ambush, occurring before anyone realized they should have been prepared. Alphonse was missing part of the story: the part where Izumi had opted not to fight back with her captors after having stepped out for a breath of air during a sleepless night. She was able to judge the situation quickly, and it was far more dangerous for all parties if she fought back. This would be her warning to the occupants inside until an alternate course of action was available. Both Lt. Ross and Brigitte had slept in the main room that night, though the Lieutenant had not laid to rest yet. She had heard, and seen, Izumi leave, but unable to drift off, she finally rose from her book in the corner chair and realized that the teacher had not returned. That in itself was curious enough, but when Ross could not see her on the porch or at any point between the house and lake, her first reaction was to wake Hawkeye and Mustang. Hawkeye was the one who woke Brigitte, and with a finger to her lips requesting silence, she sent her to bring Alphonse into the room. By the time Ross had said enough to Mustang to draw him out of bed, their sharpshooter had left the premises and Brigitte had vanished into Alphonse's room. Before Alphonse was awake and the remaining occupants of the house could be completely prepared, the cabin had already gathered two intruders.

The trump card lay in the knowledge that Lt. Ross could not be traced to this location; therefore one additional body could be mobile. Mustang left his trust with Hawkeye to handle the situation outside. There would be no way she could confirm for him the status of what lay beyond the walls, so he dragged the indoor proceedings out to give as much time as he could for her; a horrific task given that two children were present. Before the two had stepped out for confrontation, Mustang had relayed the cue to Ross for instructions to Alphonse. The moment it could be ascertained that things could not be drawn out any longer, she would make the request. Hawkeye would recognize the odd prompt as her cue to fire. If no shot rang out on their behalf from beyond the building, Ross was under orders to fire instead.

In the end, both Hawkeye's and Mustang's shots rang out in tandem, one shattering the glass window from beyond the house and blowing out the knee of the man Ross faced with, and the second from Mustang, putting a terminal end to the immediate threat over Alphonse without hesitation. Silence once again eclipsed the room. Mustang would not do this dead body any justice, and simply left it where it lay. Pulling Alphonse away from where he stood, still hidden behind the shield of his eyelids, the officer brought him beyond the mess and ushered him out of the room. Both children were handed over to the Lieutenant as Hawkeye threw open the screen door and re-entered the room.

"There were six?" Mustang asked. His weapon still trained upon the smaller of two figures, withering around on the floor, clutching the knee that oozed thick, red blood out from between his fingers.

"Yes. Though a great deal of credit is due to Mrs. Curtis," she answered, pulling out the long ends of her hair from the back of her shirt where she'd tucked it away, "she's keeping watch outside currently."

Addressing their second victim upon the floor, Mustang's arms crossed over his chest, "Allow me to introduce my major, Riza Hawkeye. Funny, she is the reason you aren't dead."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Forgive me if I'm neither surprised nor angered by that. From what you've said since stepping inside, it's obvious your superior doesn't outsource a great deal of information to her dispensable pawns," Mustang's weapon never left the wounded target upon the floor. The faint illumination inside shed a vicious shadow across the complexions of the two officers looking down upon this chess piece, sacrificed by Dante, "but, you don't have to tell me anything, your presence here is an answer on its own."

"They must have been watching Havoc for longer than we realized," Riza put in, "we're obviously enough of a threat to somebody that they needed us out of the way promptly."

Nodding, Mustang could not disagree with that, "Hakuro's presence in Havoc's place created our suspicion, and their presence confirms it. Everyone here is a perceived threat by her, so much so that she assigned a shadow to our vicinity: a shadow she's associated to Alphonse and Mrs. Curtis."

The figure upon the floor gave a laugh, shaking his head where he lay. He shifted a bit, pushing his forehead against the floorboards as he continually clutched his knee, "You have no idea what you're dealing with…"

"That is the third time I've been told that recently and I'm damn sick of hearing it. However, I have no problem conceding at this point that, no, I don't have any idea," Mustang lowered his weapon, removing his hand from the trigger as he let the device hang at his side, "and all things considered, I don't believe your upper management has a full understanding either. The fact I'm walking away from here tonight is proof of that; therefore the advantage is mine. Major, we're leaving."

"You're not going to shoot me?" the voice was taunting.

The question did not trip up Mustang in his exiting stride, "I have never considered myself a proponent of that style of execution; I am not interested in shooting wounded men in the backs of their heads."

With that, Mustang dangled his right index finger in the air as he exited the cabin and reached into his pocket for a white glove.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note: **

- Ah! I waffled on the title for this chapter way too many times...

- This is the second version of this chapter - for Ed's side of things, anyways. The original verses had the story told entirely from Ed's point of view. I changed my mind and decided to give the poor guy a break from his emo and focus on Winry's 'adventure'. Though, can you imagine the absolute panic Ed's going through at the moment?

- Oh, yes, chapter 76 is finished :D I just want to look over it some before whisking it away. So, no, you won't have to wait 6mo-1yr for another chapter XD;. I'll have it ready sooner than that.


	25. In Lieu of Armistice

**Foreword**

Between the prior chapter and this, it's been two years and nine months since I last updated. I have a note in my last chapter saying that wouldn't happen... I feel like quite the heel...

I was sitting around over a long weekend and suddenly thought of this story again. A friend of mine from work had been going on about her mother's book that had been published and how it has won awards (congrats to her!). She'd talk and I'd think 'I really did love writing. I can describe things in writing that I can't draw'.

I've had this chapter done for ages but I never posted it. Other than my story muse being confiscated by my college (because I had a spot in the library where I always wrote – I left and it didn't follow) I was worrying too much about people liking what I was writing. I'd always wanted to write the ending for myself first and foremost, and the fact that people have liked it was a huge bonus. Thank you thank you thank you. I really have no viable excuse for abandoning this story for so long. Totally my bad and I'm sorry for being neglectful. I should be hung from a flagpole by my undies and have crab apples thrown at me. I don't know if I'll ever get to the end, but I'll work on that. Strange thing is, no matter how much time goes by, whenever I think about it, I always know the course of this story. That's nice :)

This chapter is self-beta'd. If you notice errors or anything truly bizarre (because sometimes I have sentences that just make no sense lol) send me a message and I can edit :) thanks. FMA still has a special place in my heart, even if I forget that sometimes.

Luv,

Yuuki

* * *

**Previously**

**Front Side of the Gate (Alphonse)**

Havoc is interrogated for mounting discrepancies that have come up to cover the actions of Alphonse, Mustang and Hawkeye. Mustang confronts Izumi about being left out of the loop and her taking actions without his consultation, while later in the evening the wayward gang find themselves as the targets of an unsuccessful ambush.

**Back Side of the Gate (Edward)**

Winry receives a phone call for Ed, at special request, from the post office to retrieve a package. Unwilling to mull around at home any longer, Winry takes off to find Ed in the market to tell him the news, only to find herself turned around an horribly lost in the vast city of London.

**

* * *

**

Chapter 76, Part XXV – In Lieu of Armistice

_Don't start. Don't even think of starting, Winry Rockbell. You start and it'll never stop, then where will you be?_

Sitting on in the middle of a cement staircase she'd found herself at, Winry's face was in her hands, trying to realign her dismantled train of thought. Yet again, she had walked for hours, upon hours, asking where to find this address in her hand. She was pointed in this direction and that direction, back 'that way' and 'somewhere over there'. Hours and painful hours later she found the place where Doctor Wilson worked; an institutionalized-looking, redbrick building. She'd recognized it in an instant and nearly cheered. Even the sun was still up to dance with her.

And that would be her only dance partner.

'I'm looking for the office of Doctor Charles Wilson?'

'He's off for the week.'

'I know, I'm staying with him, but I'm a little lost. I need the address back to the house.'

'I'm sorry, but the doctor's address is privileged information.'

Winry was fine with the fact that she'd been denied the information – obviously you don't give someone's address out to a stranger. But, apparently, it was also a crime to contact one of his associates who _could_ validate her story. There could have been up to fifteen people in the building who might have remembered her with all the ruckus that Ed's wooden leg had caused, but she wasn't even allowed to speak to one.

They argued, and argued, and argued some more until both women were nearly blue in the face. One would think that prerequisites for working in a hospital would be decent manners, so if this nurse didn't stop wagging her finger in Winry's face, she'd bite it off.

Winry gave up, throwing her nose to the air and deciding to find another place in the building where she might get some decent service. But, the crazy nurse must have seen the intention in Winry's eyes and contacted co-workers across the building.

'Now young lady, I believe you were told before that we can't help you with that.' That reply, or some version of it, was everywhere she went.

_You bitch._

By five that evening Winry was flaming mad. She felt like she was being treated like a street urchin. Eventually, someone was kind enough to tell her that the people she'd needed had left at 4:30 – in the middle of her escapade. Barely able to hold her cool together, Winry again demanded to speak to a supervisor, a manager, a director – someone who'd give her some assistance.

The 'assistance' finally came in the form of a security officer who escorted out of the building and asked her to 'kindly be on her way'.

So, Winry sat herself down in the middle of a staircase she'd found and tried to calm down. In her never-ending mental chaos, the default point for all of her thoughts was a sign she'd seen while trudging along. A block or so away she'd seen that quaint little police sign again – only this one appeared far more official than the last hole in the wall. Her mind was so swollen with her own thoughts that nothing was coherent, but Winry finally managed to gather together enough sense to march her way over to the station. She planned to ask, in her sweetest voice, if she could use the telephone.

Some time ago, the first police spot she'd encountered was a meager little outlet, but this one was far more intimidating. Stepping inside, Winry found it was active and lively, cluttered and decorated, and it had more than one person kicking around. Maybe they were used to seeing people who were out of sorts wander in, because no one batted an eye at her.

Winry patted her hair down anyways, and tried to rub away the circles under her eyes before clearing her throat, "Excuse me?"

"What can I do for you this evening, young lady?" came the reply of a younger man behind the counter.

Winry figured he must have been the lowest person on the totem pole in that day. He was the least decorated of all the officers there and the only person who seemed to greet anyone. Though, she had stopped wondering why people were always so polite when addressing her, "I don't have any change on me, is there any chance you'd let me use the telephone for one call?"

"Only one call?" his voice prodded, almost playfully.

Even if she'd wanted to entertain this officer and his sweet grin, Winry's head was pounding too hard to play along, "Yes, please, just one."

"Help yourself at the end of the counter," the officer waved her along with an empty smile and then called out, "Gloria, would you pass the receiver to our patron and dial out for her."

Winry blinked at it all and shuffled away. She'd been passed along just like that, no questions asked. She glanced over to 'Gloria', the frumpy, middle aged woman seated at a switchboard, tucked away at the left side of the facility. Reaching out in a robotic daze, Winry took the receiver from her.

"Please keep your call prompt, Miss. What's the number?" Gloria asked.

Winry passed the woman her piece of paper. As the number to the Wilson house was dialed, Winry's attention uncontrollably drifted. The station was bubbling. Her ears heard parts of conversations: a pickpocket snagged something from a woman in a fluffy dress, a hunched over old man was prattling along about filling out some sort of form, the person who'd entered after she had was paying his fine…

"Miss, is the line ringing?" the receptionists voice came back into the picture.

"Huh?" snapping back to it, Winry suddenly realized that the phone was ringing in her ear.

And ringing. And ringing…

After what felt like forever, Winry finally took the phone away from her ear and placed the handset down. Her elbows, hands and forehead soon slid down until they came to rest on the counter as well. Why was nobody home to answer this phone? Was it even the right number? Maybe they'd gotten this number from that cranky nurse this morning and it was deliberately wrong…

"No one answered?" there was that all-too-pleasant low-ranking officer's voice again.

"No," Winry muttered into the countertop.

"I might be mistaken, but judging by that reaction to a dead line, you're a woman with a problem."

Winry nearly laughed, it sounded like a crude pick up line? Couldn't he try a little harder?

"Is it something that you need some assistance with, or more personal in nature?" he inquired further, with that playful tone again.

Picking her heavy head up, Winry eyed the verbal doormat he'd presented.

"I'm lost. Really lost. I was supposed to stay with a family friend and couldn't find my way back. I knew he worked down the street, so I went in there to see if someone could help me find the way home. They refused to help me because they didn't recognize me," her cheeks burned, and Winry struggled to hold a stiff upper lip, "Why would he have introduce a houseguest to the lowly receptionist anyways? Stupid cow. And I've tried calling home a few times, but no one answers. No one _ever_ picks up. I want the reason to be because they're out looking for me… but I wish they weren't! I wish someone was _home_."

The officer's hand came up into his hair, his brow furrowed in thought. Winry's rant was obviously not what he had expected and the entertaining tone was replaced with something far more business, "How long have you been out and about?"

"Since yesterday," she took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, "Stupid me, I didn't take anything with me, just my coat and mitts. The only thing I've had to eat since breakfast yesterday was a bun. My feet are killing me, I'm cold again, and the only people who can help me left that horrible building over an hour ago…"

Winry threw herself back from the desk. She needed to take a deep breath, her voice was shaking and she did not want to loose her composure on him. The situation was embarrassing enough. With a heavy exhale, she finished with the shake of her head, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

_Don't cry._

"Franklin," the young officer who'd lent Winry his ear looked away, calling for one of his co-workers, "hey Franklin, can you bring over those wires?"

"Does it matter which ones?" without leaving what he was doing, the disinterested Franklin clipped together a thin pile of sheets when the answer was 'no', placed a small paperweight upon it and sent the collection scooting across the counter.

Stopping the impromptu bundle, and dumping the weight from the sheets, the young officer did a quick skim of the sheets before pulling one out, "Is your name Wendry Rockbell?"

She stood in silence to the question, for some reason unable to answer the question.

"You seem to fit the description," he continued, giving the paper a flick of his finger, "A wire came in from one of the stations a fair ways off. If you're Wendry Rockbell, then people are looking for you, and you've made quite the hike."

Her mind was so slow to process the statement, and all she could do was mumble, "It's Winry Rockbell."

The officer double checked the sheet with a raised brow, "Oh right, sorry, yes. Odd spelling you've got there."

Without warning, her body did not want to move any more. She'd been dragging herself around town all day and there was not enough adrenaline to keep her mobile. The weightlessness of relief kept her from collapsing all together. By this point, it did not matter who it was, it did not matter when, or where, as long as some prince would come and take her home.

"Have a seat and don't run off on us now," the officer pointed her to a seat, "the wire says a gentleman named Hyland asked this notice be passed around. We'll get in touch with the dispatcher who issued this and see if there's more information for you."

* * *

By this time in her endless life, the construction of a perfectly symmetrical pentagram was no longer a challenge for Dante. Adorned in black, polished shoes, the devil child stood square between two points of the pentagram she'd drawn with a paint brush in thick, red blood over the polished floor. Nothing but the bloody circle encompassing a powerful alchemical equation sealed the sigil.

"Let's try this," her spotless hands came onto her small hips.

"You couldn't have used an animal to draw this?" cradling the silent infant, Aisa inquired to her tiny overseer.

Dante only scoffed, "If you're going to try something, do it right. It's no harder to drain a man than any beast," the petite figure turned, "my child, please."

Without further conversation, Aisa obliged. The woman approached Dante, and placed the infant in the small arms of her master.

Adjusting the child in her grasp, the ancient soul moved her young body to the center of her alchemical pentagram and placed the baby, wrapped in a white blanket, down at the center. Turning, Dante faced out, positioning herself between two points of the drawn pentagram and looked cross-room into her tarnished ballroom hall. From the unbroken lamps, scattered rays of light shone orange, carrying the predominant colour of her magnificent room.

Dante clapped her hands.

It was, as it always had been, an exhilarating few seconds. For every ride she'd taken to the Gate, the surge of power and emotion was different each time. There was always something new, something salivating, something so close to being tangible but entirely unobtainable. After hundreds of years, the imagery bombardment began to have moments of repetition – glimpses she'd seen before. She almost, _almost_, felt like she could recognize the events and piece them together if she could get only a few more visions. No matter what ridiculous information was thrown at her, it no longer frightened her like it did in her youth.

Her ballroom transformed into nothing more than hollow, white space. It stretched on for eternity. Finally, the infant howled, screaming endlessly as it had been hoisted into the air by the frozen hands of the Gate's wall. Once again, this worlds crossing was locked into existence.

Dante looked straight ahead, the Gate at her back, watching Aisa for a moment. The woman had been taken along for the trip to the Gate, though she did not visibly flinch at the sudden change in surrounding. With wide eyes full of never-ending awe at this space, Dante turned over her shoulder and looked up at the towering structure looming over her. An ancient, aching sound tore out as the heavy doors slowly swung open for her, presenting the black abyss beyond the passage.

The eyes and arms of the Gate never greeted her or touched anyone when the baby was around. She was free to romp and roam unhindered.

"Foul entity," Dante's eyes narrowed, looking down at the body she'd drained and left for to the Gate as bait, "at least take the peasants body."

No response was given by the Gate.

"I'm being toyed with," Dante snarled, unable to see the final pieces of her puzzle, "You're an irresponsible wretch when I come alone with the stone, and you won't give me the time of day when I arrive with a child that should be of your liking. I do _not_ understand what I am missing."

Annoyed, Dante tugged at the simple sundress she'd worn for this day's adventure. Her fingers gripped the white and orange fabric and the woman clenched her fists as she forced power into her legs and approached the steps of the looming, vast opening.

Dante's subconscious fears brought her to a halt. Although she knew that in this state the arms of the Gate did not reach out for her, she could not easily brush away over 500 years of caution.

Inhaling a stiff, deep breath, Dante stepped up to the black void that lay beyond the open doors. It was frighteningly silent – she felt more comfortable when it was laughing. _I am not so foolish that you can mock me now, am I?_ Harshly tilting her head back, her juvenile eyes looked up to the shrill child hoisted by Gate arms, cemented into the frame of the passage way.

After a moment, her gaze resettled on the open Gate. It wasn't as though she was looking into a black void; voids appear endless. Even when the eyes and children of the Gate had looked back at her in the past, she could feel the expanse and vast space beyond the Gate's doors. However, the view of darkness the Gate gave Dante with the infant in tow felt more like a curtain standing between herself and what was beyond.

_Touch it._

A stubby, right arm was held in air with fingers outstretched. Her eyes were growing dry; she didn't dare blink. In her handful of previous trips with Diana, she had simply observed the change in scenario. She had never before stood so close, and so free to roam, at the border crossing of the Gate. What would happen if she touched it? Was it malleable? Could she reach through it? Would it suck her in?

Why couldn't she make her trembling hand move those last few inches?

This horrible, unconquerable monstrosity was at her mercy – hundreds of years later she could finally touch it. She could make contact. Would it accept her presence now?

The baby had gone silent.

Through Nina's eyes, Dante looked up at the suddenly silent and motionless child. Its stubby arms and legs lay limp, dangling from the fermented hands that supported it.

Was this right? The howling thing hadn't died, had it!

Without giving herself time to think on her actions, Dante's hand thrust forwards and forced into the black space. She stood frozen for a moment in the dead silence, her hand engulfed in the black mess up to her wrist. It was _malleable_, like thick tar. The tiny woman let her hand sit where she'd placed it, the lack of viscosity holding it up. She slowly moved her arm, watching the black space refilled behind the path her hand carved. Her expression absorbed in fascination, Dante clawed at this space. Perhaps if she dug away at it, something would be revealed. It was a wishful thought – no matter how many times her hand clawed away the material, nothing was revealed.

"I know you've allowed people from beyond the Gate to see our secrets. I've heard the stories and erased them after," Dante wasn't sure if she should be pleading, or continue arguing with an unresponsive entity like the Gate, "passage is said to be possible. The world's delegate told us this boundary could be bridged millennia ago. We were even told how."

Dante pulled her hand from the mess, instinctively shaking her hand free of a non-present black residue.

"I have the Stone, and I have kept it in my possession for hundreds of years. I have perfected its science. Now I have this child, which you've obviously recognized. These are the pieces, what am I missing?" she stomped a foot like a spoilt child. In this form, the only thing that stopped a juvenile tantrum was vanity, "How can I prove that I am worthy of that knowledge? Is the world beyond the Gate simply that much more wondrous than ours that we are no longer entitled to any of it? Have we become that insignificant!"

At that, Dante spun on her heels, "Aisa, come stick your head beyond this and tell me what you see."

It was the first time woman had made her voice heard, "I think it would absorb me…"

"Probably," Dante snorted, angry at the roadblock, "I don't understand. What more do I have to-."

All concentration was lost and the alchemist's attention suddenly fell upon her precious gateway once again. Quickly shuffling her feet away, Dante's instinct moved Nina's body back from the black space. The thick border separating two worlds at the Gate's doors had come alive. The tar churned.

It thrived.

There had been no warning. The sensation nearly knocked Dante of her quick-moving feet, and she stumbled backwards down the steps, giving distance between herself and whatever was suddenly happening. Like an overpowering odour, the black space reeked of life; it flowed in and filled the darkness with the rhythm of a pulse. It was inaudible, but pounded so hard it reverberated deep in her bones.

It was how everything had felt at the time she'd clapped her hands for Winry and reached out for the Gate. At that moment, when the thunderous pulse of the opening doors had made its presence felt, Dante had found herself so overpowered by the reaction she could barely respond to it. Upon sending Winry through, she'd scrambled to disengage her contact. In the end, when the dust settled, the doors had closed and Dante could not figure out what had nearly gone so horribly wrong. But, of all things, Brigitte was then laying on her floor.

Like a child watching in awe of a magician flawlessly perform his tricks, Dante watched the darkness swim. Her initially frightened reaction disappeared and replaced with a thirsty grin.

This was _new_.

* * *

In her own opinion, Winry had been a good sport, but she'd wanted to play along on her terms. She'd participate and then get rewarded by going home – it was the summer camp mentality. But she knew, even if she chose to deny it, that she may never get home. Winry'd instructed herself to play along in the meantime – that's how she'd cope, because moving with society would be easier than challenging it. Suddenly, there were intangible things that Winry found the world refused her to have; intrinsic little things that she would surrender to and say 'fine, I still have this or can do that instead'. The only problem was, she'd lose one every hour or so of each day and each week. Little by little she'd found herself loosing ground.

'You can't do that, Winry'

'You have to do this, Winry'

Why couldn't she have things her way! What was so wrong about her way of doing things?

She couldn't have her favourite foods, she couldn't wear her favourite clothes, she didn't have her tools, she couldn't play with her favourite hobbies, she couldn't sit or stand certain ways, she couldn't sleep in her old bed, and she couldn't have her peaceful countryside. People were constantly everywhere. She would swear they were always looking at her, sometimes they'd continue looking even after they'd realized she was looking back at them.

She'd never felt self conscious before, and suddenly Winry had moments where she'd felt uncomfortable taking her jacket off.

But, she was a big girl, she would cope with that.

Hold your head high and keep going.

Nothing Winry could do helped her to feel more comfortable in the clothing. It looked atrocious on her, from undergarments to outerwear, like someone's ugly toy doll. She would have to parade around, dressed like all the prim and proper ladies should be in this world. The situation felt ridiculous and some greater being must be laughing at her awkwardness.

She could cope with that.

For those nights where she'd sit around, absently thinking about all the ways this world bothered her, a special mention always seemed to go out to the wretched shoes that left the most horrible blisters on the backs of her heels and balls of her feet. She only had one tolerable pair that didn't leave her feet wounded, and they weren't always 'acceptable'.

And, she would cope.

The temperature was too cold wherever she went; indoors and outdoors. Even on the nicest of days, it carried a nip that she couldn't shake and then it got worse the further the mercury fell. Yes, she'd been told time and again, it just seemed that way because she was new from the other side of the gate. But, the air was so dry that her nose would hurt when she'd wake up in the morning. Her skin was drying out and becoming itchy. Why wasn't lotion a popular commodity here?

Fine, she would find a way to cope.

She would take a drink of water, milk, or whatever beverage would be available. It was neither refreshing nor relieving. Cup to mouth. Open. Swallow. It was unsatisfying.

Edward and his father warned her of this, and if they'd found a way to cope, so could she.

But then there were the odd things that they couldn't tell her, or that she didn't want to tell them, mostly girl things. And the dizzying language barrier she couldn't bridge. There was a feeling of loss that this world gave off all on its own, without any help from her; it leeched out from the soil and floated in the air. It was entrapping.

Winry'd decided she could be strong on her own.

And then her empowered self-confidence, transplanted from a world where she could use it into a place where it received no merit, imploded on itself. She found herself standing in the middle of a strange society, having no idea what she was doing. She wanted, more than anything, to be back _home_.

Even with that wish, she was more than delighted to see Thomas Hyland march in as her prince charming to reset the nightmare. The first nightmare that started in Germany was a far better option than the one she'd created all on her own.

And there were the tears, again. Why couldn't she stop doing this? She'd gotten frustrated with herself for crying so much when she'd arrived there. In the Thule hall, with Edward, in their house – eventually Winry'd decided she was done with the tears and it was time to cope; there was nothing she could do about it so there was no use being a baby. That was a challenge far more formidable than she'd ever realized. Everything that she'd put in the reinforced 'cope' box of her mind, everything that had bothered her, exploded when she filled it so full that the bottom fell out.

Against the back of the sofa, tucked out of sight from the hallway light, Edward had landed under Winry's weight when his knees weren't strong enough to keep them both standing. She'd curled up; tucking her torn feet under the edge of her dress, her fingers clung to the back of his white shirt for dear life and she'd buried her face into the side of his neck. Her unintelligible sobs carried away a sound filled with everything she'd thought she could tolerate. She needed to have someone hear how hard it had been to support that load. There were no exact words for it, so it would have to be conveyed through the sound of her voice while her face dampened the collar of Edward's white dress shirt.

And Ed had remained silent the entire time.

From the moment she'd had enough of absolutely everything and staggered through the door, stumbling out of her footwear as she moved, Ed had been silent. Dumped in an awkward heap on the floor, up against the sofa, Winry'd done all the talking without a coherent word. By the time she'd found herself too rung out to say anything more, her mind followed a wonderful hand that soothed over her back. If Winry hadn't known that Ed was the only person in the room, she would have asked who was there. She wondered where he'd picked that up; because it was the only correspondence he'd given her. In the end, the message she'd gotten out of him was that he completely understood everything she hadn't been able to say.

Somewhere along the way, the chimes for 6AM rang and she couldn't really figure out how time had managed to get to the morning without her knowing. Coming alert from the chiming, Winry sat back. Shivering in the chill of the morning, she sat on her backside, pulling up a knee and resting her chin to it. She did nothing but tuning her thoughts into the vast silence.

_I'm so embarrassed._

Winry kind of wished the first thought to strike her wasn't one that made her feel embarrassed. What was she supposed to do now? Laugh? Cry some more? Neither one made sense. She didn't want to do either one. She would be content just to forget the last two days had ever happened. Slowly she rose from the floor, her swollen feet making the task uncomfortable at best.

Edward had not woken up; still asleep in his somewhat sat-up position, propped up against the back of the couch.

Winry watched for a moment, her arms lost at her sides. Ed was a basket case at the best of times, she couldn't imagine the circles he'd just ran himself in. She didn't want to. Her decision was the quickest she'd made in days – just leave the events behind. She didn't have the energy to deal with it and hoped no one else did either. Ed certainly wouldn't force the issue – it wasn't like him.

Kneeling back down again, Winry came to her hands and knees. This house belonged to someone else, all of the houses belonged to someone else, but they happened to have spent the night occupying this one. Crawling over, Winry lifted a hand to tap Ed's cheek, hoping he'd wake up without startling. They probably shouldn't wear out their welcome.

* * *

Izumi's command had been 'sit', but everyone merely stopped.

In the distance, faint through the haze that day, a highway could be seen. Ultimately, they'd follow that highway out of the region. There was no longer a point in staying lakeside at a cabin that had been set ablaze, and none of the group had been able to sleep after the late-night intrusion. Crucial items had been gathered from the house, organized, and distributed. The decision was reached that they would embark on their long walk before dawn. The journey itself was silent; barely a word was spoken between any two individuals. Each person bore a different weight and the walk opened up the opportunity to explore the burden. Izumi had taken the journey lead long ago and would finally stop the progression of internalizing thoughts. She dropped the bag she carried from her shoulder and looked over to Alphonse.

The youngest man's hand gripped tighter with Brigitte, who'd stayed at Al's side religiously since leaving the enclosed lakeside area.

"Sit, I said," Izumi repeated, her instruction to Alphonse more authoritative than coaxing, "everyone take a seat."

The group exchanged glances, and though Mustang was not known for one to handle orders well, even from a superior officer, with his hard gaze locked onto Izumi, he led the seating chorus.

They had embarked on a walk through the Amestris dawn and daylight moving across open country fields; decorated with a scattering of trees, lush shrubs and low-laying vegetation of all sorts. At the fringes of this peace, Izumi had been the last to take a seat upon the cool grass.

The teacher was given the grace of the speaking floor; she needn't ask for it. Everyone's undivided attention was placed squarely on her shoulders, and the story would be hers to unravel. She would discard her voice into the wind and see where it would be carried off.

"Al, when your brother was still around, you, he and Roze knew a woman named Lyra," the teacher's eyes shifted to Mustang, knowing he had this part of the story, before turning back to Al, "she was an alchemist and an assistant at a military outlet in Youswell, which was where you and Edward met her."

Leaning forwards, Alphonse recognized that this bit of information was exclusively for him.

For a few moments, Izumi sat in silence, untangling the wealth of information wound up inside her, before bringing her voice up again, "The description Roze provided of Lyra fits the description of the Prime Minister's past wife. I can only guess that at some point Lyra and Dante met, Dante discarded her old persona and took on another."

"I just want to make sure I understand this," Maria stepped in, "Dante uses the Philosopher's Stone to take over a person's body?"

"Yes," Izumi took a deep breath, clearing the air of this procedure once and for all, "Dante uses the Philosopher's Stone to continue her own life by forcing out the soul of a chosen candidate and replacing it with her own. That's the simplest explanation."

For Mustang, as frightening as it was, it was strangely fascinating to hear the applications of the Philosopher's Stone. He had momentarily considered looking into its dangerous science, before someone with a steadier head on his shoulders convinced him to turn away.

Alphonse did not know what he was supposed to make of the Stone by this point in time. It was beyond all the laws he recognized, yet, it was something he'd possessed, something that was the cause of all this mess, something he could not remember, and something very intriguing. It was weird hearing so much life given to this inanimate object. However, this object was tangible, endless, ruthless, and cruel in its abilities. The 'how to' manual of the powers had been written by the devil, safe guarded closely, and disclosed only to those privileged and unfortunate.

"Why would someone do something like that?" Alphonse asked. It was a moral question posed to an immoral situation.

"It would be for power, I would assume," Hawkeye suggested, "entertainment is another factor to be considered. As well as a continuing agenda…" Riza's final syllable was left hanging as she caught the gaze thrown towards her by the meeting's conductor.

"The Theory of Beyond the Gate," Izumi said.

She'd thrown the additional puzzle pieces onto the table. The teacher's words again garnered the undivided attention of adult and child alike, "It is a theory deals with the idea that there is another society, another world, or another plane of existence beyond the Gate. A world enriched with knowledge, alchemy and otherwise. It is something, potentially, that is far beyond our ability to understand," she cleared her throat, "for all the things she's used her life to accomplish, bringing together this theory seems out of Dante's reach."

With a stiff voice and unwavering power, Izumi began to shake away the wrappings of an ancient tale. She would be the unwilling breath of life into a story withering away at deaths door.

"Alphonse," the teacher turned her attention to the youngest of the group, "I don't believe Edward is 'property' of the Gate, like we originally thought, but he is beyond the Gate, like Brigitte seems to indicate," Izumi cast her gaze over Brigitte, watching as the girl returned her glance with caution, "if she wasn't sitting here in front of us, with so much overwhelming information, I would never have given the idea a second thought."

Al nearly leapt from his grassy seat, "If Brigitte came to our side, then my brother _can_ come home!"

"If they are masters of alchemy beyond the Gate, why hasn't Ed brought himself home?" Mustang intruded into Alphonse's joy with a damming question.

"I don't know," the concern returned to Izumi's face, "assuming Ed understands his situation, if he was aware of a way home, he would find a way to do it. He's too bullheaded to not to," she sat back a little, mulling her thoughts over, "we're missing a lot of information, most of which isn't on our side of the Gate."

Squirming, Brigitte could only look on in confusion as eyes flickered on and off in her direction.

Taking a moment to step away from her explanations, Izumi re-gathered her thoughts, "On the whole, the theory is based off folk tales from Dante's youth; stories passed on to her generation after already being told for centuries. The stories themselves are found nowhere in today's literature, I would guess they either faded or were removed."

Maria added her voice to the chorus of aloud thinkers, "And those stories deal with people who exist beyond the Gate? Like Brigitte?"

"People beyond the Gate and people who've travelled across it," Izumi answered, her arms stiff over her chest. She hated this story and loathed thinking about it. Judging by the rising eyebrows and hungry gazes, she was uncertain how her listeners were piecing together the information. The woman's fingers squeezed in thought and she laid a new ground to start from, "It's documented that Alchemy began evolving and taking on the applications we are familiar with today several thousand years ago, correct?"

A collective nod in agreement went through the group.

"The theory, and I use that term loosely, claims that ancient Alchemists had encountered people claiming they'd traveled beyond the 'Gate'," Izumi's hands loosened as she disposed of a little more of the story, "all of which happened at a point in time before Alchemy began it's major evolution – it's those stories that no longer exist."

Alphonse drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his young arms around his legs and clasping his strong hands over his wrists, locking his body while the story filtered in, "You're thinking the travelers triggered The Alchemy Revolution?"

Izumi continued on, conducting her class of abolished history, "The theory discusses the implications of the travelers from beyond the Gate, what kind of knowledge they possessed, and the first historical mentioning of the Philosopher's Stone. It claims that a great deal of information was exchanged before the travelers returned home," Izumi secretly wished someone would speak up and ask a question to divert the endless sound of her voice. She had no problem addressing a crowd; it was the topic that concerned her. "Portions of the theory imply that the principles for alchemy, as we've come to know them today, were founded on principles provided from beyond the Gate. So, yes Alphonse, it implies that they triggered our alchemy revolution."

Alchemy had its revolution many, many centuries before the Philosopher's Stone was created. But, because of the secrecy that taught to shroud the science at the time, it was assumed that the alchemical documents and recollections of the past had been hidden, destroyed by mistake, misinterpreted, or went unrecognized and vanished over time. Documented history struggled to validate the origins of a science that was once kept in the utmost secrecy; it had not always been an accepted practice.

"And, the knowledge bases for alchemy are said to be substantially imbalanced in the other society's favour," Izumi continued, "Because of that, it is believed there is something like a Utopia beyond the Gate. At the very least, some type of Alchemical Perfection that we are not permitted to obtain."

Alphonse's hands gripped a little tighter. Perhaps he'd waded into a pond so deep he may never touch bottom. It was a sudden, sinking realization that came over him that he honestly had no idea the foe he was bound and determined to take on.

"… Or, so says the theory," Izumi finished, "and then there's Brigitte…"

Silence eclipsed the group, no one too certain just how to handle, analyze, or interpret so much foreign knowledge. Mustang and Alphonse were the only two listeners who could associate the information with anything of relevance, while the two supporting female officers could only digest the knowledge as though they were copying a college text word for word, without complete understanding.

"And Edward is there?" Maria questioned suddenly and had Izumi nod in response.

"And Dante wants to get there?" Riza followed up.

"My assumption is yes," the instructor confirmed, "and I don't think she's concerned if we reach Ed on the other side before she's reached anything over there herself. If we do it before she does, that just means she didn't have to get her hands dirty to accomplish the process."

Again, the silence of slow comprehension over took the group beneath the mid-day, over cast skies.

"Validation?"

Until this point, Mustang had only offered his voice once. He had not wanted to interject, but simply absorbed everything given to him and processed it as best he could. Yet the more he wrapped his mind around the key bits that Izumi had given, the less something made sense, "Dante would need some sort of validation for the 'theory' to convince her, to convince you, me, anyone, that its worth investing more than one lifetime in. What is the catalyst, prior to Brigitte, that tells anyone that there may in fact be something there."

Izumi wondered if anyone had noticed her wince. Many things caused her stomach to pinch, but the terror of this thought made it so much worse, "When someone travels to the Gate, you can see everything it holds but never truly understand what it means. What you see is what lies beyond the Gate in fractured, distorted, and incomplete detail. The glimpse beyond the Gate is a tease for what is obtainable and the hell you would face to get it."

"Dante believes all that because she's seen it, right?" Alphonse asked, his voice almost squeaking, "that's why she believes it?"

"Anyone who's been to the Gate has seen it," Izumi gave a nod in response, though her gaze quickly became tangled up with Mustang.

The senior officer had narrowed his eye. Why had she just unquestionably explained away the Gate's imagery? No matter how much he wanted to know, the look in Izumi's eyes created a dark and heavy weight in the pit of his stomach kept him from asking, kept him from _wanting_ to ask, how she could validate 'Dante's' vision of what lay at the Gate and not leave any room for doubt. Instead, he finally chose to digress, "How much of this 'theory' did you gather?"

Izumi snorted, rolling her eyes more so at the weight of information she bore on her shoulders, rather than Mustang's inadvertent ignorance, "I don't know if I should call it 'too much' or 'too little'. To be perfectly honest, there're great chunks that don't make any sense. I don't know if that's because I didn't get all the information or that the information wasn't there in the first place. I have portions of information spanning from how to cross the Gate to what purpose 'baby Diana' might serve," Izumi shook her head, dissatisfied that she had so much information thrust upon her so suddenly in such a fragmented state that she couldn't even confirm how much she honestly knew, "The initial theory itself was abandoned at an incomplete stage, so there wasn't a completed list of information to begin with. It lacked credibility and a great deal of it was next to impossible to prove. The original author was so skeptical of what he'd penned in that he'd abandoned it."

"Wait, '_he_'?" Al's attention jerked away from the bewildered state he'd sat in for so long, "Dante's not the author?"

Izumi stopped, her answer coming after moment of hesitation, "I don't recall ever saying this was Dante's theory."

"Is the author known or does he pre-date Dante?" Mustang took the reins and dropped the question forthright.

Izumi's gaze started out at Mustang, but dropped away into the soil. Her brow wove together as she thought, listening to the weak whip of the wind drift past her ears. Amidst everyone's silence, the threads of grass swayed in rhythm as an internal debate held her eyes down.

Sweeping her attention over to Alphonse, she watched as the boy looked over her, his expression begging for information, "The man who was her first husband. Back then, he signed as 'Von Hohenheim'."

* * *

Glancing to his side, Ed watched with a raised eyebrow as Winry turned the brown, paper-wrapped, square package over and over like some child determined to solve the mystery.

"I'd still like to know what you think you're doing?" he rolled his eyes, shaking his head before finally returning focus to the sidewalk the two walked along, "I told you to stay home."

"I wanted to find out what this package was that had caused me so much grief," Winry scoffed, giving the box a shake, listening to the dull contents thud around inside amongst, what sounded like, crumpled newsprint.

In an hour and a half long argument, that seemed to take up most of the morning, Ed had profusely refused to take Winry with him to the post office. Heck, he hadn't even planned on going today - the bloody package could wait a day or two. Much to his chagrin, Winry persisted, and persisted, and pestered, until finally Ed gave in and told her he would go fetch the package he'd believed was more trouble than it was worth. The deal was that he would go and she would stay home with her ass-end in a chair and her feet bundled in wool socks. Winry's early morning had started out that way, but regardless of exhaustion, sore parts and Ed's orders, she'd found herself unable to stay prisoner in a chair. She'd done that the day before and barely survived, but this time Edward had the gall to tell her to learn how to knit to pass the time.

So, the agreement was ratified: Winry would accompany Ed. Insisting that the men's boots and fuzzy socks she had on were comfortable, she'd tagged along with Ed as he entered the postal outlet and followed him outside again like a happy puppy, much to Ed's annoyance and mostly dismay.

"Where are your keys?" Winry suddenly asked.

"In my pocket," Ed spat out, his eyes turning to slits, "_why?_"

Tucking the cubic package under her arm, Winry grabbed Ed's single good arm by the wrist and tried to wiggle her way into his jacket pocket, "I want to cut the tape and open it. Your keys will work."

"Knock it off Winry, dammit," trying to pull his arm free and turn away from having his keys abducted, Ed wound himself in circles down the sidewalk as Winry pursued, "get some patience and wait until we're home at least, you're going to bre-"

As though irony felt like driving home a point in Edward's favour, the package landed with a dull thump on the sidewalk.

"You're going to _break_ something," he held a snarl of displeasure in his voice. Though, as Ed's eyes looked down at the fallen item with great displeasure, he very quickly realized his keys had been confiscated. Annoyed, he threw his gaze out into the morning street and found his glance narrowing at something entirely different; eyeing the traffic officer in the upcoming intersection that had stopped all lanes of traffic.

Kneeling down to the sidewalk, dirtied with days-old snow, Winry gripped the house key firmly and began attacking the tape that separated her from this mysterious object.

"Oh…" Ed's brow rose momentarily.

Not to be disheartened by the difficulty she was having with the key and tape war, Winry paused a moment, glancing up to Ed. He hadn't barked at her in the last sixty seconds, when he had every reason to do so. She felt kind of bad about this ridiculous tizzy they were at today. It was like some sort of ridiculous cover-up, because barely anything had been said between the two of them the day before. She didn't know what she was supposed to have made of that day, it wasn't as though they avoided each other or she hid away in her room in shame of her behaviour. They'd sat in the sitting room all day together and said next to nothing. Well, the mention of tea came up occasionally, and crunchy buns, but not much more than that. He'd asked her more today about how she'd been feeling than at any point in the prior day. A good chunk of the time, she could read Ed like a book, but yesterday he'd shut himself right up and had vanished into the book he was reading. She was afraid to ask him about it and, more so, really wanted to apologize for it. Winry was certain it was her fault he was being like that and just ended up feeling guiltier because she couldn't convince herself to speak up.

Watching Ed's attention veer elsewhere, Winry paid no mind to his distractions and returned to her self-appointed task. At the final snap of tape sealing this tiny cube of mysteries, she straightened up and held out the box victoriously.

"Opened!"

The sudden sound of a single church bell came – a powerful intrusion startling the both of them. The sound echoed out into the streets, flowing without interruption. The deep chime forced the world to stand still so its sound could run freely through the streets. Again and again the chime rang, racing past with painful force and haste, tugging on the edges of Ed and Winry's coats. Neither one of them could see the steeple that was ringing out a powerful and endless sound that had stopped time.

"Ed?"

The sound of the bell seemed to rise above her voice, attempting to silence her.

"You opened the box?" he glanced over, no longer startled by the deep ringing that continued to thunder around, "happy now? Can I have my keys back?"

Winry's question came with caution, completely thrown by how Ed had suddenly just disregarded the hypnosis of the deep bell, "What was that?"

"Today's the eleventh, it's a memorial day of sorts," Ed gave the response with a shrug, shaking the moment and issue away as though it was nothing, "don't worry about it."

"A memorial for what?" it was confusing to watch him suddenly become so detached from a moment he'd seemed to have been captured by. The box suddenly became Winry's secondary interest, "everyone just stopped for what?"

Ed rolled his head around on his neck before begrudgingly answering, "A war."

"What war?" Winry's tone was more surprised than persistent sounding. No one had told her about a war.

"A big war. A war that's over. What's in that damned box, Winry?" Ed demanded, drawing her attention back and smacking the top of the box with the back of his hand.

Winry blinked down at the box she still firmly clutched, "Right, it's open." Sometimes she truly hated when he'd get so blunt and vague about things that seem so important to everyone but him.

Ed extended his hand, "Keys. Now."

Without a word to the matter, Winry returned the man's keys and proceeded to lift open the cardboard flaps to the box, "What kind of a war?"

Ed watched as she pulled out some crumpled news print and fished for their prize. His melancholic expression grew a shade of concern as Winry wrinkled her nose at the eventual discovery. Ed did respond to her question though, his voice lost in a stagnant monotone, "the kind where lots of people die." He watched her crouch and place the box down on the ground, and then return standing with a thick, brown, leather-covered book, accented with gold plated corners and matching clasp in hand.

"What is it?" his head tilted.

Turning it over in hand, Winry examined it a little closer, "It's a day timer? Or diary?"

"It's too large for that," reaching out, Ed took the weighty object from Winry's possession and held it in his hand. It was oversized, thick, heavy, and quite professional looking. It wasn't exactly what he'd expected for a surprise delivery.

Sliding up to his left shoulder, Winry recognized that the book was too much for Ed to manage standing with only a single hand. With the flick of her thumb, she released the snap-button clasp and pulled open the cover with far more ease than either expected for something that appeared so freshly bound. Ed cradled the binding in his hand while Winry flipped the fluttering pages back until the front page came to be.

"Wait, what!" Winry exclaimed, uncertain if she should be amused or angered by the printed name of the owner on the inside cover, "This belongs to your dad? Why's it coming to you?"

"What the hell? Why was it addressed to me?" Ed grumbled, his interest in the object slowly growing a layer of disgust. Still cradling the book in his left hand, Ed watched as Winry handled the pages, flipping to the title page.

The outer pages were thick, like protectors, but the core of the book was not written on such strong paper – very light and free. Each page was only printed on one side as the ink had bled through, rendering the backsides of each sheet unusable. And it was hand written - the entire book was hand written. The first page gave the title away – stylized in thick, black ink by a dip-pen.

Edward stood and reviewed the title over in his mind more than once.

"'The Theory of Beyond the Gate'?" Winry read aloud.

His nose wrinkling, Ed wasn't sure if this was meant as a game, joke, or otherwise, "The _what_…?"

* * *

"This is as far as I go, folks," the horseman pulled on the reins of his cart, slowly drawing his caravan to a stop, "Pendleton."

Russell Tlingum stepped out from the back of the covered caravan, his shoes kicking up the road dust as he moved. All riders aboard the rickety transport had caught the elaborately decorated sign for Pendleton. Russell almost laughed; the city was in no way vibrant enough to live up to the excitement of their welcome sign.

Pendleton, the final city settlement in the west that was governed by Amestris, and even that was in question. The border town itself lay in relative peace and the inhabitants relied on only themselves for support. The government constantly gave its attention to the north, east and south – the Pendleton outlet was left to its own devices. The only time this location garnered attention was when the governing body of the western country raised its voice and threw out the empty demand that the outlet be returned to their jurisdiction.

Looking back into the caravan, Russell gave a nod to his travel companions: his younger brother, plus Gracia and Elysia Hughes. Elysia had tucked herself away in young Fletcher's lap, and the younger of the two brothers played 'big brother' to a young companion. The elder pair of Gracia and Russell kept themselves occupied, chatting with the driver, taking inventory of what they'd brought, and working on how they would manage to get themselves across the armed border to the west. Gracia had refused to go along with most ideas, not because they weren't sound plans to see the mother and daughter out of the country, but because they did not allow for a flawless return for the two boys back into their home country.

Extending a hand for Gracia, Russell helped her out of the cart.

Both Gracia and Elysia had taken on a change of clothes during the trip west. A peasant or farmer's look was decided to be the easiest solution. Four finely dressed people showing up at an outskirt town would raise a chorus of alarm bells. A simple white and pale green dress was collected for Gracia, and a yellow and green speckled dress with bonnet had been found for Elysia.

With feet on the solid ground, Gracia turned back to help her daughter out.

"Get up Fletcher," Russell called as Elysia left the boy's lap.

Calling back to his hitchhikers, the caravan driver gestured out west, "Since I'm not crossing the border, I'll take my leave of everyone. Do you have your things?"

Fletcher handed the last of two backpacks to his elder brother before signaling a thumbs up at their driver, "Yes, Sir. Thanks for taking us out here."

"It's been a pleasure to have you along," chirped the driver, "not often I pick up a pack of strays that come with a couple pretty ladies. Good day, folks!"

The light crack of horse reins were heard, and the caravan that had taken the group from West City to Pendleton continued on without them, leaving a fine cloud of dust in its trail.

"Mummy, I'm hungry," Elysia sulked as she took her mother's hand firmly, "can we go eat?"

Russell would respond as the teen suited up with a backpack and satchel, "We can stop and eat if you two are hungry, no problem with that. Or we can try to cross and see what's to eat out of country."

"Fletcha?" Elysia called, "is food better out of country?"

The boy could only shrug in response, "I dunno, I've never crossed the border. Maybe it's mysterious. Mrs. Hug—er, Gracia? Do you know?"

"Mummy?"

Russell's attention went onto the woman as well, but she could only smile and give the same unknowing response. It bothered the eldest Tlingum to hear how she'd forced her pleasant tone to keep her daughter from sensing anything was wrong. As far as the little girl was concerned, they were going on an adventure with Alphonse's friends, a great adventure, and when it was done, Elysia could see everyone again. That's what they were trying to maintain.

But Izumi's letter to them was no adventure, and the boys instructions were clear: see it through to a safe end. Initially, Russell had told Gracia they would hide out in West City, since the conflicts were mostly in the other quadrants of the country. But a problem came in securing their safety – the boys were a liability since they stood a chance of being recognized. Then came the problem of slipping a woman and child into a district that was extremely tight knit. Their names would create another issue. None of them could gauge the extent of Dante's eyes and ears. Changing their names would work, but convincing Elysia to go along with it for an indefinite amount of time didn't seem to be a reasonable expectation for the child.

In West City, it was Gracia who had suggested leaving the country, since it would not be a stretch to get to the western border. Once across, they would all become untraceable. Regardless of the regime change in their home country, most nations had, at one point or another, engaged in extensive combat with Amestris. Though a peaceful border existed in the west, the bordering nation did not let their grudge die so easily. For the most part, the nation was completely disinterested in providing any type of assistance to a warring nation. Hunting down a few citizens wouldn't be a request they'd entertain.

"Are you doing okay?" Russell asked quietly.

Gracia turned, her ears drowning out the bubbling chatter of Elysia and Fletcher as they walked. Her head lowering slightly, the woman released the exhaustion from her face and allowed a peaceful expression to return, "Honestly, I'm tired. I'd like nothing more than to cross the border and worry about things like dinner and accommodations afterwards. If we even ge—"

"No," Russell cut her off, "no 'if' here, we'll get you across, even if we need to go through the country side."

"The country side would be easier, then we don't risk arguing with the border guards," Fletcher piped up.

Stopping, Russell turned on a dime to face his younger brother who stood beneath his line of sight. Elysia tucked herself behind the shorter of two boys as he grinned up at his brother.

Russell flared his nostrils momentarily before lowering one eyebrow, "Last I checked, you were having a conversation about ice cream."

With a chirp to his voice, as if to impress the young lady at his side, Fletcher responded, "_You're_ the one always telling me, 'Pay close attention to what I'm saying, Fletcher. It's important'."

Sliding his hands into his pockets, the elder brother rolled his eyes at his nosy younger brother and found a new line for their conversation, "We need a snack, I'll be right back. Nobody go anywhere."

Gracia looked back over her shoulder to Fletcher. Amusement curled into her expression, but she used the voice of a wise mother, "Be careful not to trodden too much on your brother, Fletcher. He's trying his best to be a responsible for everyone."

"I know, I know," the young boy rocked on his feet for a moment before something moving caught the corner of his eye. The figure in motion was his brother and the younger boy's attention veered towards the new direction his brother was wandering.

"Hey guys!"

All eyes rose to the call of Russell's voice. He had nearly marched to the bakery at the corner of this dirt street, but had stopped in the middle of four crossed roads. With his gaze cast down the only street obscured by buildings, the right hand turn in their path, Russell gave a sharp snap of his wrist and flagged over his companions. After a moment of hesitation, the remaining three in the party joined up with Russell.

At the end of this right-hand turn, no more than 500 meters ahead of this tiny, sleepy town, was the border crossing.

Russell's arms slowly folded at the sight before them. A meek yellow and black painted bar in the road that separated two nations was raised and a shameful little officer's house at the crossing, barely larger than two outhouses, was vacant with the door hanging open. The actual border guard, in Amestris military garb, was unshaven and his shirt lazily done without all buttons. His scruffy brown hair was a bed-mangled mess and his military jacket had been thrown over the back of the rusty lawn chair he lounged in – crossword in hand. An aging peddler pushed his mule-less wooden cart with his own strength across the invisible line without so much as the flicker of acknowledgement.

Russell's grin grew wider. Stealing a look from the corner of his eye, he watched the concern wash away from Gracia's face. Right now, even more so, Russell loved this responsibility he'd been given. Despite the dire circumstances and situation surrounding the upheaval of this family and the stumbling trek into the western quarter of Amestris, the tiny family was a wonderful group to be around. Beyond how contagious the mother's smile was, there was no point in their adventure where he could shake the warm feeling that followed this tiny family at every turn.

Remembering the story they'd settled upon on their way here, Russell cleared his throat, "Ahem… 'Aunt Grace' shall we escort you and your daughter 'home' somewhere over there?"

The woman's smile remained, softening at the thought of safety and pushing aside the sad feeling of leaving the land they'd called home, "That would be lovely, thank you."

* * *

**To Be Continued...**


	26. The Theory of Beyond the Gate

**He Who Searches For Himself  
**

**

* * *

Previously**

**Front Side of the Gate (Alphonse)**

Dante continues her examination of the Gate while Izumi lays out an explanation regarding her motives as well as The Theory of Beyond the Gate. The Hughes family is escorted out of the country by the Tlingum brothers.

**Back Side of the Gate (Edward)**

Winry's rescued from her frustrating adventure through the city of London and uses Ed's shoulder to cry on as a vent. After some awkward recovery time, they retrieve the box from the post office that caused so much trouble for her.

* * *

**Chapter 77, Part XXVI – ****The Theory Of Beyond The Gate  
**

* * *

"_The Theory Of Beyond the Gate,"_ Dante's abuse of Nina's childish voice rang out, "sounds too mature for a picture book. Let's call it: The Story of the Great Gate. By Dante," the little body turned, "Break it up, Aisa – Dan and Te, with an accented E. It should read: 'Written by Dan Té'."

Aisa raised an eyebrow, taking down the note while glancing to the locked door of Nina's spacious room as the childish creature pranced about over a light grey carpet.

"_Chapter One: Once upon a time, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, there was a philosopher. A great, wise, and __noble __philosopher…" _the child's arms floated around at her sides like an orchestra conductor, "you're taking notes, right Aisa?"

"Yes Miss."

Dante drew up Nina's tiny index finger once again. She spoke as though she were an adult, whimsically addressing young children, playing with their thoughts and teasing their imaginations, "This philosopher was an alchemist. He dared to do things no one else sought. And this man, like so many other alchemists of his time, was a medical alchemist. All kinds of diseases could be cured through his wisdom and compassion. Soon, he would teach the world how to not only make medicines through alchemy but with two bare hands. He lived with a dream that he could create a greater good for society."

She would write a picture book – a child's picture book. Dante gleefully made the decision on her way home from the underground city she coveted. That journey was so easy to do too, some days. Half of the staff in the Prime Ministers private quarters had been brought under, what had been at the time, Lyra's sphere of influence. Now it was hers, but to let on that a child was at the helm of this organized dissent would be absurd. The new controller was simply recognized as anonymous and far more cold than 'Lyra' – to keep the minions in line. Disruptions continued within the nation at her own discretion and control. She was so close to what she wanted and in her life's legacy she would leave a book written for a child, telling this world how she understood the folk tales, myths and legends that had barely survived through time before arriving in her possession – where she wiped them out.

"_One day, a traveler came into town. He collapsed at the philosopher's home, begging for help. 'Oh the hells I've seen, you cannot imagine,' the man cried, exhausted and worn, 'all the turmoil I have been guided through to find you here, Great Philosopher. Please help me.'" _

The tale would be something to entertain the minds of young children and be foolishly disregarded as imagination by all their parents. Like the skilled alchemy masters of eons past, this alchemical story would be told in code. If that fateful day would come where she no longer stood on this earth, then let it be her last laugh at an ignorant world.

"_The philosopher took this wounded man into his care and soon, through what the traveler described as a miracle, his body was healed. _

'_You are far greater in your knowledge than I could have ever imagined,' stated the traveler, 'my wounds are indeed healing.' _

'_Where have you come from, young lad?' asked the philosopher, 'for someone to not know the workings of simple medicine, I'd like to know where our nation may lend a hand and aid your plight.'" _

Children's eyes would get to see this mysterious story of the fictitious 'Great Philosopher' and learn more about their own history than their parents could even comprehend. There was no one left to validate the stories as anything more than that and the most important events of their lifetime would sit right under their noses for no one to find.

"'_I come from beyond the Gate, Great Philosopher. I was granted knowledge of your existence and was given lead to this world only if I could withstand the hardships; I'd feared I'd have died. I have passed the tests with the aid of Gods and their sons and here I stand.'" _

As a young woman in the body she'd been born into, she'd heard the stories. Word-of-mouth tales that grew into greater secrecy as the generations went on, told only to those deemed great enough and trustworthy enough to take on the secrets. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, the legendary tales took place at what was viewed by present-day alchemists as the new dawn of their art. Alchemy, from those fabled stories forwards, exploded. That was the Alchemy Revolution.

"_The philosopher laughed, 'I know nothing of which you speak. This great God, his son and crossing Gate - no mention of these has there been in any known time. I am nothing more than a doctor and an alchemist.' _

'_You are an alchemist?' _

_The traveler had asked his question eagerly to which the philosopher replied proudly, 'I do not deny that.'"_

Dante would put no effort into the advertisement of her book. If a child's eye found it, then let it be so. If they did not, then so it shall be. It could be discarded when the eyes are no longer interested, or immortalize it as a fairytale. Fact-based fairytale stories which she'd taken from the world decades or maybe centuries before. Stories re-told in diluted fashion for any simple mind to read, then reorganized and clearly conveyed as best she and her husband from long ago had ever come to understand any of it – regardless of how incomplete her understanding may be.

"'_Shall we converse, Great Philosopher? For your knowledge on the betterment of my wounds, I will, in exchange, give you the knowledge I carry in my fibers for your alchemy.'"_

But this book, it was just a toy; a fun little aside to keep her feeling as childish as her body. It did not quell the annoyances. The Hughes', the lakeside cabin, or the little inner workings of the government that a full sized Lyra Mitchell once had much more access too.

The way the Hughes had 'left home' had made her suspicious. Alphonse was with them and that family had far too many connections to people who fit into other parts of the picture. She wasn't certain where to sound the alarm bell, but she'd given a general alarm for the entire situation. The growing number of people who answered to her omnipresent beck and call were in all corners of the country and she'd prefer to hear back from any one of them sooner than later. She couldn't help but wonder about the story out of West City, of a young mother, a little girl and young boy that fit her criteria for Elysia and Alphonse. But what was strange, was the addition of a young man that she could not place on her puzzle board. Was she looking too hard, or was this deliberate to throw her off? In the meantime, Dante would be forced follow the actions of a useless police task force, sent out to track down this 'woman and family' that she was more than certain was not meant to be found again. This drew a vile ire from such a small physique.

Where the _hell_ was Izumi?

Was it Mustang or her own informants that burned down the cabin community? How many bodies? She hadn't heard back – that worried her. As it stood, Mustang and his right hand were missing, but his left hand was about to be locked down, and his loyalists were to be conveniently placed out of reach from one another.

"…Miss?" Aisa's voice came up.

"Hm?" Dante lifted her head, the twisted expression wrapped in thought bled into her face, "I'm burdening myself, Aisa."

"What's on your mind?" the woman squared herself around to the petite figure.

"Everything and that's the problem," Nina stepped forwards again, "I'd like to think that most of this will wash itself out, but I don't want to be confident in that. I dislike playing chess a great deal."

"Nina?" there was a knock, and a familiar male voice came from beyond the sealed bedroom door, "Dear, may I come in?"

"Wretched excuse of a man," the child muttered. A narrow set of eyes tore down the wooden door in thought. The voice of the man she gave an honourary title of 'father' to had startled her, causing her train of thought to come crashing to a halt, "interrupting me constantly. I'm tired of him and his fawning. Something needs to be done about him."

She was half tempted to leave him on the other side of the door to beg for permission to enter her room. Instead, she grudgingly smeared on her nicest expression and invited the bothersome lump of flesh in to entertain him in whatever nonsense he wanted with her this time.

* * *

"So, Once Upon a Time…" Edward tilted his head, casting a thoughtful gaze into the corner, "pieces of this world's mythology got tangled up in our ancient history. We didn't know how to interpret mythology and ended up with ideas that formed 'The Theory of Beyond the Gate'."

Gnawing on the last bite of her tea bun, Winry could only shrug, "The messed up rate of time on this side could line our histories up that way, I guess."

The centerpiece of a library table, overflowing with hidden mysteries and unknown wisdom, was the thick, leather-bound book with a golden latch. Each endless page inked in handwritten scripture depicted the skeleton of a theory whose final form was still incomplete.

Rattling the end of his pen on the desk, Ed sat up in his seat. His eyes would fall to the tabletop for minutes on end as he tried to connect the pieces of a fractured map, "_The Hermaphrodite Child of the God of Boundaries_," Ed pointed a finger to Winry as he read, "You'd said Dante had named the baby 'Diana', right? In the theory, that child at the boundary is called Diana," his eyes flew back to the pages in hand, his brow tightening, "So a hermaphrodite infant is meant to be the purest representation of alchemy, '_one to represent all'_. The theory tries to use Diana as a doorstop, but she isn't so much a doorstop as she is a peace offering or plea for assistance," golden eyes darted around the table, picking up mental snippets of other information, "'_When an infant is placed at the gateway, the worlds will appear_'," Ed read aloud, "In the theory, the '_God of Boundaries_' is Hermes – he's the shepherd. One of his children was a Hermaphrodite," his face twisted more as he tried to untangle the logic, "someone in our history misunderstood the mythology references and I think Dante figures that the logic behind Diana will suffice. Make an appeal to the Gate for it to show both worlds and allow passage all in one shot. Why does it seem to be working? It shouldn't."

Winry took up the slouched position Ed had once sat in, rather disappointed that she no longer had any tea buns to keep occupied with. Since they'd entered he public library shortly after it had opened, the pair had only seen one curious attendant wander to the far corner where they had set up fort. No patron had bothered to wander so far back, no other attendant had ventured there either. No one beyond Winry could see the pile of books Edward had collected in an exuberant sweep of the library archives. What notes did not appear on the table had been etched in stone within the Elric's mind.

"For Diana to serve her purpose, two '_Points of Entry_' are needed," he reiterated in common form how he'd come to understand the words within the theory to mean, "A point that goes '_there to here_' and one that's '_here to there_'," Ed somewhat wished he could shake the book and have the answers fall out onto the table for him, "Diana has one point of entry on her stomach with that pentagram, but there can't be a match on this side for it, because alchemy doesn't work. The theory doesn't recognize that at all – it's assuming alchemy functions properly, which almost entirely debunks the theory," he threw his gaze down, narrowing an eye, "but, maybe it didwork at one point in time?"

"Why don't you wait and ask your dad?" It was the third time in the last hour she'd given him that answer to the endless rhetorical questions Ed voiced. Even after being immersed in a science she had very little understanding of for eight hours, as much as Winry appreciated his excitement and unwavering devotion to his science, she was extremely bored.

Shaking his head, Ed couldn't dismiss his day so easily, "And when do you suppose he's coming back?"

"Whenever Dr. Wilson brings him back," Winry gave her defeated answer with a heavy sigh, "but I'd bet he can answer your questions, since his name is on the first page."

Somewhat disheartened by Winry's lack of interest, Ed's train of thought broke away from his studies and switched to hers, "It's obviously my dads. It's done in his style and there's too much alchemical knowledge in it for anyone on this side of the Gate to even have had a hand in it. Now-a-days anyways," Ed redirected his focus to one of his scattered sheets of paper, "They'd called and said they'd be back 'sometime this week' and I'm not waiting around to find out if 'sometime' is tomorrow or three days from now."

The night when Ed realized what it was he had been reading his world stopped. It was the most astounding feeling he'd had in years. The amount of information in his hands was incalculable. The potential of it was inconceivable. Bubbling up from inside was a childish, jubilant side of him that wanted to make sense of it all – _now_. Why care about where the package came from? He hadn't felt so vibrant in years and he couldn't fight the desire to chase the knowledge around in gleeful circles.

"It's so ridiculous," the end of Ed's pen found his teeth, "The more I look at it, the more I think the ancient civilizations on this side of the Gate had known what they'd possessed thousands of years ago; they just didn't know how to use it. Or couldn't. Their histories are full of incredibly powerful, but absolutely useless information. They must have been beside themselves with frustration."

At his point between England and Germany, Ed felt like he'd nearly drowned in an ocean of knowledge. Places so saturated with information that all he had to do was stand there and it would all come to him without any request or effort. The most exciting jaunt he took was the gleeful dive he took through Greece. Sure Rome was neat, but the whole country of Greece was fascinating. There was some place called Egypt he would have loved to have gone to, but he was unable to reach it. The names of the cities within these countries meant something far different to Edward than they did to anyone else in this world. They were concrete apostles full of stories about everything he'd ever wanted to know and things he didn't realize he could know. In these places, it wasn't always about proper alchemy, but things that could be used in combination with the science and make it magnificent, glorious and unequivocally pure with understanding and power. The history of this world was the only shred of vibrancy Edward Elric had ever found since his arrival. But, as these civilizations died, they'd taken with them mans ability to listen to their teachings – they became history, then legend, then myth. Nevertheless, Ed felt like a kid in a candy store, except there would never be enough days in his life to uncover everything there was to know from this decrepit world's flavourful history. A diverging path led him back to his father and to a country in a great amount of pain. Germany linked to the atrocity of Thule but also to Oberth, who at one time was yet another one of the faintly sparkling hopes he'd latched onto.

Ed threw his arm out onto the table, fishing for a book that he soon scooped up, "Stories here talk about quests people would embark on to arrive at a place of '_great knowledge_'. In some cases, it sounds like they're referring to going beyond the Gate. I wonder if they're mistaking it for a religious or spiritual journey, when that's not what's really happening," he had to watch himself to make sure his voice remained low, "but we could still show them all sorts of new and 'magical' things, but when they'd come home with their new knowledge, alchemy still failed to produce," he paused in thought, "or maybe it did work to a degree, just not like it does back home. The bonds between mind, body and soul on this side don't connect. But then, _our_ stories are about people showing up with great knowledge, and that's the basis of the theory," the mindless expulsion of thoughts was ultimately getting him nowhere, but it was it a tantalizing gauntlet to struggle through, "the theory is how we can embark on our version of a knowledge quest and live to tell about it. Nobody's ever done that."

Just then, there was something uneasy about how Winry had cleared her throat after he'd stopped chattering and Ed's suspicious eye wandered to her, "What?"

"I'm sorry Ed," she skipped a drained facial expression around the table, "but am I doing any good by being here? I'm not really contributing anything… useful. I feel like a token in a chair."

The question was a surprise for Ed, having been so wrapped up in this merry-go-round of thoughts that had been very fun to ride, "Well, it's not like I don't want you around or anything," he scratched his cheek childishly, "did you want to go out somewhere while I work on this if you're bored?"

Winry straightened herself in the chair, "I'm happy that you're happy with all this and everything, so I don't want to rain on that by being a spoilt sport. It's just… you sound like you're speaking German."

Ed tilted his head, knotting his brow as he thought over the statement, "I haven't said a word in German since we left the country."

Winry threw a pen from the table that bounced off his forehead, "No, you idiot. Alchemy sounds like German. Neither of them makes any sense to me."

Sighing, Ed's hand came up and feverishly scratched through his hair. She'd been mostly muted since they'd arrived. Unintentionally, Ed had ignored her growing attempts at withering around in a chair to express a festering boredom. It wasn't as though he hadn't noticed; he just wasn't ready to stop the avalanche of knowledge he was sailing down on to do anything about it. The rush was revitalizing and he wanted it to run like water. Slouching in his chair, the end of Ed's pen tipped into his mouth once again. Slowly, the stem was chewed away at as it rolled around in his teeth. To Winry's credit, she'd sat around patiently, albeit twitching around occasionally, but letting him have his day. However, it was going on six hours now…

Ed took a sharp breath, "Did you want to go be Aunty Winry to Margaret for the rest of the afternoon?"

A carefully constructed smile was drawn over Winry's horrid boredom, "I think that would be nice. Thomas can drive me home later, I'm sure."

"Sorry," Ed shook his head at himself, spitting out his pen to the table.

"What for?" Winry chirped sharply.

Ed laughed at himself, looking down to the pile of papers he bundled up, "I got carried away. Sorry."

Folding her arms, she shook her head at him, "Don't apologize for that. You, of all people, need to have fun once in a while," Winry reached up and quickly ran her fingers through her hair to make sure it hadn't tangled while she'd rolled around in the chair, "just give me a mini digest version when you have one, so I know what the heck I'm stuck in the middle of."

Nodding, Ed brushed his papers together, keeping an eye on Winry's actions as she gathered up the books. He wished he could resist offering. He knew it wasn't her thing, he knew she didn't understand it, but there was simply no one else around to hear him ramble on and not chastise him for it, "I can give you a mini digest version of… erm… the general purpose for the Gate, if you're interested?"

"Alright," amused, Winry rolled her eyes, "tell me why."

Through flared nostrils, Ed took a sharp breath as he twisted his grin to one side, "Basically, big, ominous gates are meant to keep people out or keep people in. If the door is always shut, then it's probably supposed to be that way. If a gate was around with its doors wide open and a paved road going through it, it would serve no purpose. Nobody builds things like that."

Winry continued with her paper shuffle as she let Ed continue, "That makes sense."

"Both worlds are established with exactly what they were meant to have, so we don't destroy ourselves. Our world has things that would ruin this world and so much of this world would be extremely dangerous back home," his low voice carried out harmoniously and filled their quiet hide-away at the back of the library, "the nightmare you're subjected to getting to the Gate isn't meant to challenge our resilience or be some measure of a man like we want to glorify it as, it was meant to frighten us away," Edward slowly released the remainder of his breath through tight lips, "Sensei was right. She's always been right."

Edward couldn't recall if he'd ever voiced that in any capacity before. He didn't want to be wrong, but he had to concede that his sensei had always been right about the dangers of seeking what the Gate had to offer. The Gate did not offer some grand and lavish knowledge waiting to be discovered, the visions from the Gate were visions of a hell that teased secrets it buried deep within. Were the extinct secrets of a fool's gold mine worth it? It was a cruel trick and it had captured Edward, his father and dragged in Winry. Izumi had been frightened away and had tried to instill that in her young apprentices. Ed had heard her words but hadn't listened properly. Perhaps, he had been too young to understand how to be frightened by it. Perhaps, he was trying too hard to be brave in front of all of it.

"I think Izumi would be really happy to hear you say that," Winry grinned, patting a hand down on the stack of books that reached nearly to her shoulder, "then she'll punt you into next year for all this."

Ed paled, shuddering a bit as he stuffed away his paperwork into his briefcase, "Ugh, don't I know it."

* * *

The point where Al had been horrified at the thought of who his father was had passed. Perhaps, he'd been desensitized to the idea by Dante. Why didn't this information horrify him anymore? He didn't dwell on it.

The point where Al had been livid with Izumi, with everyone, for not telling him anything about his father until now had passed. That didn't matter anymore. What was he to do about it anyways?

The point where Al had wanted to curl up and wither away had been a feeling he'd not been able to discard so easily. It had nothing to do with who his father was, or what his father had done, but it had everything to do with the military crew who had carelessly told him: as that wretched suit of armour, he had a solid, vivid memory of his father. A memory, like these others, that had been snuffed out. They were not forgotten, they were not lost, but they were gone.

Life was not fair, everyone knew that. But _this_ was unfair!

He had been too young to remember his father. For some reason, no amount of his brother's belligerence against his father seemed to sway Alphonse's idea that a father figure would be grand. He wanted to fume against his teacher – how dare she not tell him about his encounter with his father!

Once Izumi had mentioned Hohenheim as the author, the walk had resumed while Alphonse voiced an endless stream of questions pertaining to his father. At some point, Mustang had made mention of the stop in Rizembool where they had met Hohenheim around a year ago and Izumi brought the troupe to a halt with a verbal assault that started off with, 'You inconsiderate troll…'

At some point, while Al was reeling from an emotional belly flop and locked in his own world of disenchantment, they'd hitched a ride in a truck's hay carriage. At that point, he had found a quaint little spot to ball up in and indulged in a selfish desire for solitude. He'd pulled his knees up, put down his head and was graciously left alone for the entire ride. Alphonse never noticed the horse drawn carrier stop.

"Stand up."

Al lifted his attention to Mustang's voice.

"Pay attention."

"Sorry," Al drew himself up; looking around at the rickety town they'd disembarked at. He'd let his mind wander for too long it seemed. The trip had passed him by. Stretching his legs, it felt as though he was waking up from a restless sleep. Alphonse caught the women in the group taking a free stroll away from the ride they'd taken, watching as they went along without urgency. Maria had Brigitte's hand.

"Alphonse?"

Again Mustang asked for his attention and Alphonse apologized for being dopey. Al hopped off, glancing over to the officer as he cleared the cart, eyeing him as he slung Brigitte's camera bag over his shoulder.

"Are you about done?" Roy tilted his head, looking down at Alphonse with the classic, no-nonsense expression the boy had come to expect from him.

"Done…?" Al began to walk, not certain about what to make of the question.

Mustang followed; his brisk, military pace adjusted to match the careless strides Al took, "With your sulking? Or do you want more time for that?"

Frowning, Alphonse wasn't sure if he was supposed to be insulted or was expected to come up with some smart-aleck response to the question, "Is this how you use to talk to me and my brother?"

Somewhat caught by the question, Mustang ran the idea through his mind, "My conversations with your brother weren't always the most civil; though I think I was a little more provocative with Edward than that. He was my subordinate and you had no obligation to me."

Alphonse couldn't shake the feeling of discontent and wrinkled his nose as he spoke, "I still have no obligation to answer you."

"No, you don't, but I wasn't demanding an answer out of you," the officer adjusted the strap of Bridgette's case against his shoulder as he brushed his feet along the dirt road, "I wanted to see if you'd volunteer a response, or if you'd go back to feeling sorry for yourself a little longer."

Al tightened his brow and continued to hold the wrinkles over the bridge of his nose, "You have a funny way of asking someone if they're feeling alright."

Mustang chuckled at the response, glancing up to the open sky, "I've always been of the belief that both you boys can handle what I throw at you, even if you don't want to hear what I have to say. I've yet to be disappointed," the officer slowly rolled a curl through his expression as he chewed on a thought, leaving him with a distant look, "I have another question for you instead. Which one frightens you more: The thought that you'll grow up never knowing who your father is, or that you'll grow up knowing your father knows nothing about who you are?"

The question was surprising and Alphonse stopped, shrouding his feet in a light dusting of the dirt road. Turning his gaze down, Al mulled the question over. There were the memories that he'd created of his father: they were based off of the pictures he could see and the things his mom and brother would say, even if Edward's stories had evolved into things that weren't very nice. Al had always had some foolish daydream that he could have some sort of relationship with his father, because in his mind that was possible. He wanted someone he could come home to and talk about his day to, someone he could go out with and do father-son things with – but there was no father figure in his life.

Although he recognized that Alphonse wasn't moving, Roy took a few extra strides before coming to a stop and looking back over his shoulder. His expression left no room for discussion, he was looking for an answer, "Well?"

"If I don't know about my father, even if I had a way of finding out for myself and couldn't, there are enough people around who can tell me about him, like my brother, you, or the other people that met or knew him," was the response Alphonse gave, "I'm the only one who can tell Dad about me."

"And regardless if you remember it or not, you did meet him. You didn't listen when we told you that," Mustang pointed out, watching as Alphonse bristled a little, "and you spent an entire night with your father. Alone. Talking. I do know that he asked you to talk about your mother and your adventures up until then; I was standing there. Even if you can't recall that part of your life, wouldn't you think that you'd probably have told him most everything you would tell him today? Unless you can think of some reason why being a suit of armour would change _everything_ you want to talk to him about."

Al's gaze drifted away into cityscape. He wasn't sure how that was supposed to make him feel. Usually, the thought of finding out that someone knew the Metallic Alphonse Elric was upsetting, but the idea that his father knew him like that didn't have that same nasty bite. He'd always wanted to talk to his dad about his mom and how much she loved him, and how no matter how much Ed looked like he hated him, he was still their father. Did he really get the chance to say all that? If those things were important in his memories a year ago, before they transmuted their mother, then they would have still been important when he'd become the armour. That would make sense.

"Dad got to see how good we'd become with alchemy, right?" Al's attention suddenly perked at a question that bubbled into his thoughts.

Frowning a little, alchemy felt too natural to Mustang at this point in his life to know if he could recall either of them performing anything in front of their father's eyes or not, "I'm certain he knew. Your existence was enough of an example to satisfy that."

Alphonse took that answer as positively as he could.

"So, are you done sulking?" Mustang drew upon a more authoritative tone than he'd been using moments earlier, "or do you want to find another corner to hide in while we set up?"

Rolling his eyes, Al sighed and lightly shook his head, "I'll live…"

"Good."

Sharply drawing in a breath and forcing it out again through sealed lips, Alphonse wrinkled his nose, "At least I know what Wrath was talking about now."

Mustang frowned, puzzled, "What was this?"

Shaking his head, Alphonse tried to shuffle together his thoughts, "When we found Shou Tucker's body and I met Wrath, he told me that Diana was part of some Gate theory that 'Hohenheim' came up with. He was rambling on about Dante, Nina Tucker, Diana and just nonsense. I had no idea what he was talking about," he laughed lightly, foolishly at himself, "I didn't know what to do with it, then we found Sensei."

Silently, Mustang mulled over the thought that there was a little AutoMail equipped golem running around half-naked with possibly a plethora of information on a very vile topic, "What would Dante want with Nina Tucker? Why would Wrath care?"

Alphonse paused. Mustang watched as the young man turned his attention away in thought. Not thought of the question, he figured, but thought on how to answer.

"Wrath said that Dante cut Tucker's head off because of Nina," he mulled the idea he'd hoped wouldn't become part of the puzzle, "He said that Tucker had made her and that I'd helped with the Philosopher's Stone."

"_You'd_ helped?" Mustang asked, wondering if he'd ever honestly get a foothold at some point, "With the Philosopher's Stone?"

Alphonse shook his head sharply, "I don't know. It's like 'he said, she said' because Wrath heard it from Dante. I dunno if it's true or not," he wished it to not be so, "I don't remember it."

Mustang mulled his thoughts over, "And Nina was valuable enough to her to permanently shut Tucker up." He wanted to shout out how ridiculous it was, but he withheld it, feeling that perhaps there was some point that he was missing that could connect all the dots. Folding his arms, Roy's thoughts drifted, "You don't remember how Nina Tucker died, do you?"

"No," Al's attention tilted up to the officer asking a question he must have known the answer to, "how did she die?"

He responded by wrinkling his nose and giving a momentary laugh. He remembered, _clearly,_ the night surrounding Nina Tucker, "That is one of those questions that, when I tell you the answer, you will regret having asked," he gave a light shake to his head, "it was an egregious indignity to a human life."

"I wouldn't have helped to bring her back?" Alphonse asked, "not willingly?"

The answer was solemn, "No, you wouldn't have."

* * *

Thomas's crossed arms fell lose at his sides and a moderately horrified expression followed in its wake, "You two… will have this nonsense cleaned up before Charles returns home, I most certainly hope?"

There was paper everywhere. There needed to be paper everywhere. Sheet one had everything to do with sheet 11, and 11 had everything to do with 53, while that was linked into sheet 32. The chain went on endlessly. It needed to be all 'there' at his fingertips, Ed discerned; he needed to have the links line up without having to flip through and find each sheet over again. He wished he could draw lines between everything. The centerpiece for this sprawling mess was the gold accented handbook.

"We'll have it tidied up," Winry responded courtly, her feet tucked beneath her in the side chair, "we don't need to be evicted."

"Very well then," Thomas cleared his throat, adjusting the coat he still wore. He looked around the study the two of them had holed up in. Winry's chair had been taken from the main room and added to the side of the desk, the one electrical light upon the desk had the shade removed, flooding the room with light. The room itself was stuffy; the windows were closed, though Thomas soon figured that Ed had done that to keep any paperwork from sliding around. He'd seen Edward in a set-up similar to _this_ before.

Slowly, Thomas's arms came back up to his chest. His speech was careful and calculated, "My wife and child wanted to know how the two of you were doing, since we haven't seen you in a bit."

Winry had opened her mouth to respond, but Ed beat her to a response, "We're great Thomas, thanks."

The visitor's gaze narrowed at the Elric who wasn't giving his presence fair attention, "Did you two want to go out to a park with the family later? The weather is quite fair."

"Not today Thomas, we're busy."

Thomas detached his focus from Ed and tossed it to Winry. She could only shrug, feeling the same presence in the room that Thomas could – the ragingly annoyed one Ed created around himself when his concentration was being intruded on. What Winry couldn't recognize about the awkward conversation was the unwanted sense of déjà vu that was creeping in from a discarded stitch in time.

"What are you working on that has you so enthralled, Edward?" the Englishman finally began to pry.

Ed cleared his throat quickly, lifting his head and giving Thomas a wary eye, "Complex math equations." He spoke pointedly.

"Right…" relenting, the visitor gave a nod to the response, "complex math is an extremely good use of your spare time."

"Are you _deliberately_ toying with me, Thomas?" Ed narrowed an eye, an undertone of aggression filtered into the low vibrations of his voice.

Winry's brow rose at the inflection in his voice. It was strange that he'd become defensive over what they were doing with Thomas in the room. Rising up from her chair, the pile of paper Winry had collected in her lap was set aside and she brushed the backside of her skirt smooth, "I think going out might be good for everyone. And Ed needs to clear his head, I think." Winry's hands came to her hips. Ed's train of thought never broke for any passengers, stop light or hazard sign. It was a wonder that he hadn't run out of fuel, "I'm starving and want food, so since I like the idea of getting up anyways, why not just go out."

Unable to help himself, Thomas simply had to ask, "Have the both of you been trying to figure out complex math?"

"It's not my kind of math, but I'm trying," Winry shrugged, "We're trying to find an equation that'll find and open a door."

Both parties caught the sound of Ed's hand slapping his face as she'd spoke.

"Is this New Math?" Thomas stretched his brow, "Sounds more like a riddle, since opening a door is a fairly simple thing to do." Tilting his head, reaching a hand to his face to brush away an assortment of stray hairs, all the while keeping Edward in the corner of his eye, "What does the door look like?"

Stepping through Ed's paper map spread over the floor, Winry made her way through the room, "Not too sure. It's big though."

"And you need math for this? A big door should be easier to find than not. Are there handles?" the hand at Thomas' forehead swept out in front and he offered a courtesy hand-hold to Winry as she cleared the obstacle course. His voice took up a provocative tone, "Edward, does your complex-math door problem have handles?"

Unwilling to snarl or voice his displeasure in words, Ed wrinkled his nose and shot an unimpressed gaze up to the two of them as he rose to his feet. Unlike Winry had done, the papers in his possession were carelessly discarded to the floor, "No, it doesn't."

Lifting his head high, Thomas gave a grin to the response and tilted his gaze back to Winry, "Then I certainly hope you can push it open when you find it."

Thomas had barely released the last two syllables of his careless thought before realizing he had unintentionally brought an arctic chill to the room, and everything froze. Edward had not finished standing up. Hunched over, his knees bent, Ed's widened eyes stared far beyond the baseline of the wall and carpet that intersected his line of sight. Straightening up with muscles and joints cleansed of all their restrictions, Ed turned to look at Winry. His widened expression held her thoughtful gaze for a moment before the stun finally washed away. The room melted. He could feel it, in flesh of both his hands – in the palm of the hand he had never lost and in the shadow of a memory that he had of the other. Ed could feel the pressure, the strain on his shoulders, the temperature of the doors, the resilience that ran in his veins and the clairvoyant stream that propelled him forwards at the time he had first returned from his initial escapade beyond the Gate.

"We can _push_ it open…"

"Alright you two, don't lose me," Thomas quickly glanced between them, "don't take some crazy thing I've said, run off with it and drown in the river. Are you both coming or not?"

"No! We can't, not now!" Ed's voice carried out suddenly. His excitement had bubbled up again and Edward was back in the middle of his paper nest, snatching up pages like a hyperactive child.

In stark contrast to Edward's sudden jubilation, Winry felt Thomas' polar reaction. Without warning, Thomas took Winry by the upper arm and hauled her into the hallway. The sudden behaviour was uncharacteristically harsh for Thomas and Winry could only stumble along. Stopping out of earshot of Ed, the Englishman's expression had clouded over and he spun her to grip both arms.

"What '_calculations_' are you really doing in there, Winry?"

"Um…" she had no idea what was going on or why he was so angry, "I'm not too sure about the exact formulas and terminology myself, but Ed knows what he's doing, so…"

"Is he playing with alchemy again?" Thomas spat out the question with an overwhelming volume of disgust, "some magic door in the heavens? You're letting him see madness again?"

Winry did not and could not understand the reaction. She glanced back towards the room Edward remained in through the cool, dimly lit hallway before reestablishing eye contact with Thomas, "I'm sorry, what? …Yes?"

"For Gods sake woman, _why_ are you letting him fill his head with witchcraft and nonsense?" Thomas spoke pleadingly, loosening his grip but taking hold of her at both shoulders, as though begging a young, ignorant child, "it's dangerous to let him think that he can make magic happen with circles and stars on pieces of paper, especially in this post-war time. Only mad-men and gypsies do these sorts of things, Edward is neither and is too young for so much trouble," he shook his head, lowering his gaze momentarily in thought before re-gripping her arms and looking again into Winry's eyes, "the pneumonia did horrible things to his head, made him terribly sick, bleached his eyes, caused him to think of strange things under his breath and made his mind a mess. We worked very hard to purge the blasphemy before he went anywhere with it. Please don't encourage him anymore."

… _Wait, what?_

Standing with her back against a white wall, Winry looked back into Thomas' expression. Her mouth open a touch, poised to give a response, but having no idea what that would be. Defensive instinct told her to stiffen and demand to know what's wrong with alchemy, like she could correct Thomas' line of thinking. Yet, everything about his behaviour told her she would have no luck. She had no proof to substantiate anything. There was no alchemy in this society. There was no alchemy references anywhere beyond the places Ed could provide.

"But, he's happy with this stuff and not hurting anyone. It's harmless, really," she finally answered.

"People's thoughts are dangerous, Winry…" Thomas again pleaded, "and he can't always see that clearly."

She wouldn't argue that.

"If someone thinks he's trying to play God with occult science the church will have him committed, deported or something. Lord, in the countryside, he'd be tied to a stake and burned alive. What he is doing is not acceptable in this modern city and he knows that and he also knows the trouble it brings," he adjusted the grip on her arms, "please burn his papers and find him something else to play with."

Cornered in a chilly, darkened hallway, Winry stared into the eyes of a man so convinced of his position that she couldn't argue. Her lips poised to respond but nothing was immediately forthcoming. Looking back down the hall, Winry took her bottom lip into her teeth.

"I'll talk to him about it."

Her response held little honestly, but was delivered for Thomas' sake. A white lie would set souls at ease.

"Thank you."

Thomas finally relinquished his hold on Winry. She watched as he quietly straightened the coat over his shoulders and adjusted the buttons. He gave a glance back her way, but did not offer another outdoor invite. Leaving Winry standing alone with her muddled thoughts, he walked away into the dim candle lights and deep shadows towards the household exit.

* * *

With the whip of his wrist, Roy Mustang swung the pool cue around and seamlessly threaded the tip into the notch of his index finger and thumb. Lowering his eye, head and shoulders to table level, he looked out across the deep green surface, darkened by the low and nearly absent light at the back of the pool hall.

"Three ball, corner pocket," his right hand snapped, two balls collided, and the three ball did as was instructed.

There was no playing partner. He was left alone at the back of this dreary tavern. The bar counter at the far other side of the modest building had the odd straggler hunched over their beer mug, drowning their mind in a thick brew. The careless, round wooden tables and chairs were scattered around the floor without plan or care – the seats barely occupied by anyone in this town. The lone pool table at the back of the room sat in near darkness, maybe ten minutes earlier the flickering light bulb that hung by its wires overhead had given up. Mustang's one eye had no problem with the poor lighting though, it was more his mind that was out for a romp than any skills he might have for this game.

The choices were simple: the in-house nanny, Aisa, whom Roy suspected would prove difficult to run a history trace on, or the reconstructed body of Nina Tucker. One of the two would be Dante. If Dante were Aisa, then Nina Tucker was a marionette, guided around the most important office in the country. If Dante were Nina Tucker, she was in direct contact with the most influential people in the country and Aisa would be a pawn. Irregardless of which one of the two stood to be actually Dante, both options would be dangerous and monumentally difficult to prove.

Dante: a woman who was the conductor in this game. A woman he had never met and a woman whose existence eclipsed everyone else.

The noise of chattering men from outside the building broke Roy's thoughts up. With a hint of foregone vanity, he took a glance down at himself - he looked like he'd been traveling in the same thing for days, a visual made worse by the shadow beard. How disgusting. At least he was dressed to look like he belonged at the back of a filthy pub and wouldn't draw attention to himself. Though, he would certainly love to wrap himself up in fresh shirt and they were close enough to Central now that he would probably have one the next day. The pool cue slammed down into his two hands again and Mustang stalked around his table, eyeing the pockets in which to bury his prey. His footsteps made no sound; however, the quartette of low ranking officers who'd wandered into the dive while he stalked the table made enough noise for all five men.

The Hughes family was removed from the picture being painted. Somewhere, deep down, a great relieve basked in the warmth of that knowledge. The surface temperature raged with fire though. Brigadier General Mustang felt responsible for that family's welfare and to be left out of their situation just wouldn't sit. It almost burnt him like a failing, but he couldn't quite convince himself of that.

"Four ball, side pocket," the pool cue whistled through the air as it tore a sharp path.

Izumi had been located and had brought with her more information than Roy could have ever imagined. What an infuriating woman to be involved with. And an Alchemy Gate? How absurd that sounded on its own, without any qualification. How many people running around on this earth had this kind of knowledge of his mastered trade? It was as though it were trying to patronize his own knowledge by appearing so much larger than the science he understood.

The white cue ball cracked off of its target.

"Are you winning?" came a voice that had broken away from the noisy group of young men.

Roy snorted, straightening up, "One can never have too much practice."

Dressed in his standard military garb, having entered with the fellow soldiers on evening leave, Broche made his way into the darkened back corner, "I'm not so good at this game," he took up a cue that rested in the stand mounted to the wall, "I'm a bit better at darts. After a few drinks, that is."

"Darts are for long range artillery generals and grenade throwers," Mustang whipped the cue around his wrist as he continued to circle the table, "pool is for precision workers: assassins and snipers."

"You're walking better," Broche polished the cue tip with a blue chalk block.

Roy's nose wrinkled in disgust, "I'm ignoring it."

"Ah," the young sergeant walked up to the near corner of the table, "there's a recall notice out for you. They've rescinded your medical leave and want you back in Central."

Mustang's eyes drifted carelessly but deliberately to scan over the crowd in the heart of this rural dive, "Have they?"

"Major Hawkeye's vacation has also been withdrawn. Notices have been sent out regarding it," Resting the cue along the polished wood frame of the pool table, Broche scanned what was left atop the pool table, "it looks more like a warrant. If anyone sees the two of you, they're to escort you back to Central. Someone isn't going to interpret that bulletin correctly."

"What fun would it be otherwise?" Mustang gave a laugh to his words, as though he'd known that was coming, "I made too much noise before I left. I figured our little parasite wouldn't want me far away."

"I'm sorry, Sir?" Broche's gaze rose in confusion.

Shaking his head, Mustang returned to his table of entertainment, "Don't worry about this one. Keep your nose clean and eyes open wide," stepping up to the table's edge, he slipped his gaze over to the young officer, "take your shot, Sergeant Broche."

Without any real thought to the layout of the pool table, the sergeant brought up his pool cue and laced it through both hands. Taking barely a moment's thought to his course of action, Broche cracked the cue ball and sent two balls scurrying; tumbling into opposite pockets.

"Nicely done," Mustang drew on a mild grin.

"Thank you, Sir," he stepped back from the table, watching as his superior returned to a careful examination of the table, "Lieutenant Havoc has been arrested for the disappearance of Winry Rockbell."

Broche drew back as Mustang's path began to envelop an aura, filtering off of his shoulders like steam. The pool cue came back to both hands again, his thumbs sharply spinning the finely polished wood in the palms of his hands, "And their evidence?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"It's a notice to us, then," stopping his march, Roy firmly gripped the handle of the cue with his right hand, slowly setting the stem down in the crook of his left thumb, "To pay attention," his voice came out low, but mockingly, "he'll be held hostage to deflect attention away from whatever had really gone on."

Broche flinched at the sharp sound Mustang drew out from the cue ball as it cracked off of the six-ball, vanishing into the far corner pocket, "I don't understand how Winry's ended up being an issue for this situation. She wasn't in the market. She wasn't at the hospital when we first met Alphonse. She came in from Rizembool strictly for Alphonse. She'd had an arrest warrant issued as a ruse – only a handful of us knew about it, and then you threw it out."

Mustang's ears listened as he signaled the young sergeant back to the table.

"She's not an alchemist. She's not military. She doesn't work for the government. Why target her apparently at random?" Broche leaned down to be eyelevel with the table, swiftly lining up his shot, "the situation we were dealing was different when she vanished, and since we're assuming it wasn't random, what could she have had at that time that we didn't have?"

Watching as the shot rang out, Roy's eyes followed the one ball that danced into the side pocket, and the other that bounced off the edge and rolled into the center of the playing field.

"Knowledge."

Broche stood up, unfazed by his missed shot.

"Knowledge is something we have now that we did not have before, it's something easily and quickly acquired, and its something that can be just as swiftly silenced," Mustang lined up the easy shot left laying on the table for him, "there's been a pointed effort to try and control or silence people with knowledge. Us. Havoc. Tucker. Brigitte."

Pool balls cracked against each other again and the familiar sound of a ball delivered to its pocket was heard.

Broche returned to the side of the pool table, eyeing the layout of the clean white ball, the numbered character ball, and the ominous black eight ball. Mustang did not remove himself from the table edge like he had previously, instead he hovered over it. His hands gripped the side as his thoughts dug deep through the run-down layout of the tap house.

"Winry roamed free between the Prime Minister's residence and the Hughes' household. It was only Gracia who'd controlled Winry's movements within the city – asking for her over to the house," Roy drew back, "from Dante's perspective, she was an uncontrolled element within a situational experiment. But, she did not factor into the experiment because what she had to offer was inconsequential. At what point did she become a danger to the experiment? The only time her actions were controlled was when her tool case had gone missing – she was drawn back to the Mitchell house. Does that make the entire staff under that roof part of the problem? She didn't have enough time to endanger the experiment. None of us were even aware that Dante had been under that roof."

From beneath his brow, Mustang watched as Broche's attempt at a double shot, failed, leaving the two remaining balls in play in near perfect alignment.

Tapping his cue on the table's edge, Broche looked to his superior, "Maybe Dante screwed up and Winry found out."

Rolling the pool cue through his hands, Mustang again snapped the rod through the air, listening for the faint whistle it would generate. Slowly and seamlessly he again laid out his shot; hand gripped carefully at the end of the cue and balancing the tip perfectly at his index finger and thumb. Roy held the position for far longer than he had intended as he ran the idea that Winry had encountered something tremendous at the Mitchell property. What was left behind of hers were nothing more than a pair of shoes that could have been left at a door and tool case that might not have been found.

The balls on the pool table cracked again, each rolling as Mustang had desired, soon vanishing beneath the surface of the deep green table top.

Broche had said 'nice shot' but Roy had not acknowledged it. He had never imagined that he would have wished a standard street-side kidnapper to have been anyone's fate – especially for a sixteen-year-old girl. However, it seemed frighteningly more attractive than the how the alternative was unfolding, made worse by the fact that there was absolutely no tangible trace remaining of Winry Rockbell. No ransom. No threats. No tease. Just silence.

"Sergeant Broche, you should join your comrades for their drinks and mind this old pool shark in the corner."

"We never met, Sir. Don't worry."

Reaching into the pockets, Mustang began fishing out the balls he'd vanquished.

* * *

There was no snow tonight, no overcast skies, no angry wind; just a winter chill in the air that didn't have the same bite as the earlier days. Ed wondered when the winter had stopped feeling so cold.

Years ago, he would have sat on the porch on nights just like this, watching other people's lives move along, and wished he could go home to his. But those nights, sitting outside, never lasted long. It was so cold he couldn't tolerate it. But, those first winters were no colder than this night, he figured. Winters back home were nothing like they were here – Winry could probably attest to that now better than he could. Ed missed that disgusted feeling he once had for so many of this world's traits.

The last few days had been so exhilarating, so passionate and so alive. Like a wild animal, set free to chase down its prey, he ran headlong through the information in the gold-plated text. Doors opened. So many doors. With the exception of the one he desperately wanted to reach. But, never before, at any point, had Edward Elric ever felt like he'd been so close. The vibrant thoughts of finally escaping coursed through him and it kept him running on high.

He snapped his wrist and brought his hand up once more. Looking at the etching he'd recreated of the bastardized transmutation sigil upon the Thule Hall floor, Ed ran his eyes along the grossly misaligned creation. How did _this_ factor in? It wasn't in the theory. The theory was bitter and resentful of the alchemical 'wonders' beyond the Gate, but it was not cruel. Not like this.

"I am…"

Ed turned over his shoulder.

"… so good!"

Winry burst out of the door and onto the porch to announce, "Dinner is served!"

Laughing, Ed allowed a deviant into his grin, "You're fitting in so well, Winry. They've domesticated you already."

Sputtering, she missed smacking him upside the head with an oven mitt, "Congratulations Jackass, now your fate is to starve to death. I can eat a mountain of mashed potatoes all on my own without any help from you."

"You'll get fat," Ed's voice almost sang his words.

"This temple is not getting out of shape any time soon, okay?" Winry flashed her hands in Ed's face before throwing the door back open, "there is way too much walking in stupid shoes in this world for that to ever happen."

Shaking his head, Ed glanced down to the sheet of paper in his hand, listening as the door creaked at Winry's thrashing, "Never pictured you as a shoe girl, Winry."

Turning back to grab the door handle, she rolled her eyes, "Neither did I. And then I found a place that had more horrible shoes than I knew what to do with. I am a victim of circumstance, Edward Elric."

Ed glanced over with a feigned look of innocence, "Is this where I apologize for that?"

"Yes, you do."

"Oh," he again flicked his wrist and looked at the penned transmutation circle in his hand, grinning as he heard the door slam.

Why did Winry first appear on this sigil? It was ridiculous to think it was coincidence. Where did Brigitte go when Winry appeared? It didn't make sense.

Raising his eyebrows, unprompted, Ed looked over his shoulder again, "What?"

Winry stood in the doorway again, hip propped up against the doorframe, arms crossed and face twisted, "Dinner _is _served."

Ed thumbed back to the door, "I thought I was sentenced to Death by Malnutrition?"

"Idiot," Rolling her eyes, Winry reached out and swiftly wound Ed's loose right sleeve around her hand and yanked him inside, "Stop staring at the paper, it's not going to answer you tonight."

Snorting, Ed rolled his eyes as he slid out of his shoes and stumbled into the house. He took a quick sniff of the dinner aura before responding, "I still have no idea what the hell it's for," he dumped the sheet with the gross sigil on the dinner table, "a good number of the conditions for the theory are met back home, its just that there is no matching 'there to here' connection to the Gate on this side. Instead, the only historically documented 'drop zone' for the Gate is this ugly alchemy sigil on a German sect floor."

Plunking a myriad of steaming plates down upon the cloth covered table, Winry shook her head as she busied about the kitchen, "Then its time to seek out more advice. Thomas told me when he stopped in to check on us that Mr. Wilson and your father would be coming home either tomorrow or the day after. They've gotten tired of discussing politics with people. Apparently, your dad said something about how he'd been reminded about why he'd chosen a career in education over one in politics."

"Winry," Ed took up his fork from the table, "when did Thomas stop by today?"

"Um," she sat down, putting the oven mitts in her lap, "before noon sometime. He wanted to know if we'd actually cleaned up the mess or if he had to tell Doctor Wilson that we were running a pulp mill triage center."

Casting his gaze across the layout of steaming dinner, Ed tapped his fork on the table, "Would you not talk to Thomas about what we're doing? At all. Period."

"Why?" Winry threw one leg over the other and leaned forward for her answer.

Leaning back, Edward narrowed an eye at her forthright behaviour. Regardless, his response came out bitterly, "Thomas can gossip better than a swarm of thirteen year old girls. I don't want our alchemy to give him something new to focus on."

Rolling the motion through her shoulders, Winry pulled her hands over her knees, "You don't want him to purge your blasphemy?"

Dropping his fork down, Ed sat up firmly in his chair. If he'd had two arms to cross, he would have done so, "I knew he'd said something. What the hell did he tell you?"

With the flick of her wrist, Winry took up a spoon from the table, swept it through her prized whipped potatoes and licked the winnings away, "That magic doesn't happen with circles and stars and that only gypsies and cults do alchemy. I'm supposed to discourage you."

Snatching up his fork again, Ed sharply sank the prongs into a fat cauliflower head drenched in steaming sauce and pointed it at Winry, "I've told you alchemy is not an accepted science here. It's defunct, obviously," he waggled the dripping end of his fork over the table and Winry threw him a napkin to keep the tablecloth clean. "The first time I brought up alchemy with Thomas I didn't realize why my dad had told me _not_ to do that with anyone. Thomas persisted for a bit before telling Wilson about it. That ass arranged counseling for me at the church with his priest. It was the highlight of my February getting told that I was traveling on a road to hell and needed to get off and follow their path back to the holy light."

Winry giggled, swallowing hard on her potatoes, "That's special."

"Sure," Ed rolled his eyes, popping the cooling vegetable into his mouth, entirely unimpressed with the memory, "Doctor Wilson and my dad had a good yelling match that ended up having a bunch of my things burned."

Winry's tone changed to something less amused, "Um, now that's a little extreme."

Ed laughed at that, shaking his head, "Winry, the single most important lesson you're going to take away from this world that has nothing to do with alchemy, is that you do _not_ screw around with people who orchestrate the 24 hours of their day around their god."

Turning her attention back to dinner, Winry began picking away at her evening's culinary accomplishments, "Is that why it took you so long to start getting your information on alchemy together?"

"You mean the stuff back in Germany?" he sputtered out after popping a spoon in his mouth.

Winry nodded, "Yeah, you didn't seem to do anything for your first while here."

Shaking his head, with the spoon handle trapped in his teeth, Ed popped the utensil out with the snap of his tongue and flick of his wrist, "Like I said, a lot of my things were burned. Paperwork included," Ed raised his hand, waving it dismissively, "what I'd worked out wasn't much good anyways. I couldn't find anything useful at first, not until Thomas got into college and he'd gotten me access to the library. I wasn't up for it initially anyways; I had other things to deal with when I got here."

"Like New Monia?"

The spoon woven through a few left fingers and a strong thumb tapped down onto the edge of Edward's plate. Lightly, he tapped it against the porcelain plate as he ran a tight knot through his upper lip, "Yeah, like that."

It wasn't so much of an Edward Elric Wall as it was a rickety old door, and Winry narrowed a curious eye, "Can I ask what it is?"

Like the fork earlier, Ed brought back up the spoon and held it firmly between them, "No, not at dinner, you can't."

She felt a twinge of fascination, making her feel like a curious five-year-old and she replied sweetly, "Okay."

Watching as Ed began to wave the spoon back and forth through the air, Winry's curious grin grew as Edward's face slowly adopted a ridiculous smile. She watched in amusement as the spoon slowly developed at deliberate pace, seemly timed with the tick of the second hand on the wall clock.

"What?"

Ed chuckled, dropping the spoon limp in his hand, "I'm going to get us home."

It was irrelevant if Edward did or did not know how that would happen exactly, it was the first time the tone in his voice had been honestly believable. It had always been words before – words of comfort. Words of confidence tingled within the body so much more and wrap you in a warm blanket that you never want to crawl out from.

Grinning like some silly juvenile school girl at the delightful statement, Winry gave a sharp shake of her head to clear the childish air, "Not if you don't eat! You die of malnutrition and I'm screwed," Winry's two index fingers suddenly began directing table traffic, "You. Me. Dinner. _Now_."

* * *

**To Be Continued…  
**

**

* * *

**

Author's Note:

- Wow it's 3am, my cat is screaming at me (because I'm not in bed for her to sleep on) and I hope I didn't miss anything – I did some touch-ups after AmunRa gave it back to me.

- Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter. Some little part of me was worried no one would be interested anymore.

- For Ed's deal in the library, I hope people maybe picked up that the words I italicized in Ed's speech were words he was directly reading from the book.

- I think that's all for now! I'll post-edit if I remember something.


	27. Rebellious Ignorant

**He Who Searches for Himself**

* * *

**Previously:**

**Front Side of the Gate (Alphonse)**

Dante indulges herself in the Theory of Beyond the Gate, while Alphonse tries to digest the idea that his father was once again involved with parts of his life he couldn't remember, and Roy tries to come to terms with the growing mountain of information.

**Back Side of the Gate (Edward)**

Ed tries to find a way to apply his father's Gate theory to their current situation to see if it sheds light on a way to get home, while Winry finds out that Alchemy is not a popular topic of conversation with their British circle of friends.

_

* * *

__Once upon a time, a traveler from a far off land and a great philosopher had come to meet. One man possessed great power, the other possessed great knowledge. Their voices became one for the first time and, from that fabled encounter, a new dawn was brought forth._

'_I had no idea herbs could be manipulated in such a way,' fawned the traveler in awe._

'_I had no idea alchemy could behave in such a manner,' cheered the philosopher in delight._

_Each man spent days at the other's ear, sharing words of wisdom that eclipsed the others._

'_I stand in your world somewhat humbled, Great Philosopher. My knowledge is nothing beyond sparse compared to your wisdom and profound abilities. I truly came unprepared for our encounter,' the traveler lamented._

'_My young man,' cheered the philosopher, 'you have shared with me wisdom that my children's children will know the benefits of. You are far too harsh on yourself.'"_

_The traveler raised his head – an idea overtaking him. _

'_May I be so bold as to make a proposal, Great Philosopher?'_

'_By all means,' the wise man encouraged._

'_I shall take my leave of you now and cradle in my heart all that which you have given me,' explained the traveler, 'I shall return to my land with these riches and share what I have learned with my people. I will request of my peers the procurement of our knowledge so that each time our paths may cross, new knowledge can be exchanged between our kinds.'_

'_An equivalent exchange?' questioned the philosopher._

'_That is my proposal,' was the travelers response, 'for you have the methods to which our knowledge may be applied.'_

'_With open arms I will await your return, and shall too work towards perfection of theses sciences for both our nations.'_

**

* * *

****Chapter 78, Part XXVII – Rebellious Ignorant**

* * *

Why was it so much more enthralling, and obviously time consuming, to sit at this poorly lit desk and glare at this poorly written alchemy sigil, than it was to drown in all the other information? The conclusion seemed to always return to: because it was a mystery. Mysteries are always so much more tantalizing and invigorating than easy pickings.

The permanently established sigil upon a German sect floor was grotesque. It was constructed with a plethora of understanding, completed deconstruction, but completely failed at reconstruction. At points, the sigil was deliberately designed to seek an alternative outlet for reconstruction. In a desperate attempt to fulfill its intended purpose it would rebound and devour the alchemist. The mind, body, and soul would be unceremoniously torn apart in no particular order. The power flow would just be desperately grabbing for whatever it could get and ultimately never getting enough. No amount of life force could ever be provided to satisfy whatever this sigil was meant to do.

Ed continued to question it, though. If this sigil was meant to do something, what would it do? That question was a greater mystery than realizing it essentially did nothing at all. There wasn't the slightest indication that it had a functional purpose beyond being 'pretty fancy to look at'.

Edward frowned at the sheet. It made him queasy thinking about what attempting to control something like that might feel like. Leaning over it a little further he narrowed his gaze as a curious thought crossed into his mind – a thought that was unceremoniously interrupted by two stealth hands that came down past his ears to rest on the desktop.

"Fascinating."

Ed glanced to the intrusive flesh, "Bugger off, Thomas. Who let you in?"

"Who would you assume let me in?"

Rolling his eyes, Ed moved to remove the sheet from the table top, but missed his mark when Thomas beat him to it. He turned over his shoulder, watching the Englishman hold the sheet cautiously by its corners.

"Yes, fascinating."

Unimpressed, Ed's tone rose at the intrusion, "It doesn't fascinate you at all. You even tried to scare Winry the way you tried to scare me off."

Without qualifying the statement, Thomas released the paper from his fingers and allowed it float down to the floor, "Why are you doing this Edward Elric?"

Scoffing, Ed reached down for the paper, but found himself unable to reclaim it as Thomas placed his foot over it. He glowered up from below his brow, "Don't say my name like you think you're my father or something.

Using the tip of his foot, Thomas slid the paper away from his verbal jousting partner, "I thought we came to an understanding on this a long time ago, that's why I invited you to accompany me on campus – so you could see other avenues to channel your knowledge through," the man gave a disappointed sigh, "you're _smart, _Edward. Really brilliant; I watched you make an entire theatre of senior science students sound like schoolchildren without a day of classroom education, yet bury your intelligence in fictitious alchemy. It makes you seem a little mad and I'm quite certain you are not," Shaking his head, the Englishman couldn't clear the befuddled expression, "Did the Germans convince you this was an acceptable waste of your time?"

"Do you people ever run out of things to blame the Germans for?" Ed stood up, stomping his good foot down on the remaining portions of exposed paper, "just go home and play with your kid."

Thomas's brow knotted and the man lowered his gaze over his shorter counterpart, "You sound like a sympathizer."

"Guess what, Tommy," Ed chirped his words. He stiffened his shoulders and, extending his back to challenge the man who did not seem to be as tall as he once used to be, said "I would have to care about some fragment of this world to sympathize with it and I don't. Get out."

"You try very hard not to care about anything around you, don't you Edward?" the Englishman tilted his head, allowing the gaze to slide down the bridge of his nose, "you didn't even care enough to come to Julie's funeral."

Wishing he could spit in the man's face, Ed disengaged the staring contest, left the paper etching to the floor and abruptly turned back to the desk, "I was in Rome. You can't get from Rome to London that quickly and I didn't know she'd died until later anyways."

Thomas reached down and retrieved the sheet of paper from the floor, "You never said a word to anyone when you'd left. I thought you'd at least do her the courtesy of saying goodbye."

"I had no plans to say goodbye to anyone and I had no plans to have to come back here either," Ed looked away while running a memory through his mind. He turned around sharply, resting his backside against the front edge of the desk.

Thomas's hand came up with the bastardized sheet of paper. His gaze running over the deliberately plotted lines that meant nothing to him, "So, now what will you do? Continue to expand on this nonsense and play around with all these unknown things you hide in your possessions."

"That's the general plan," Ed nodded affirmatively, stepping out and snatching the sheet of paper back with the sharp flick of his wrist. He held it up at eye level, looking over the sigil as he walked back to the desk to replant himself.

What a lurid nightmare this sigil in his hand was; much more of a nuisance than Thomas, but entirely silent about it, thankfully.

"What does it do?"

Surprised, Ed looked up, "What?"

"That alchemy symbol," through nearly tight lips, Thomas gnawed on the question, "you'd told me once how you can customize symbols to behave in certain ways. What does that particular one do?"

"Um, nothing you'd like. Nothing _I'd_ like," he raised an eyebrow at it before turning the image around and holding it up for the man to see, "you're a religious man, Thomas. Your God really wouldn't like this idea; this kind of alchemy would make him reel. I haven't a clue what its intended purpose is, but if anyone tried to use it for something, all you would see is someone disintegrating and vanishing before your eyes. You'd be scared and completely ignorant about what you'd just witnessed, but your God would understand what had actually happened," he took a step closer to Thomas, his voice dipping low and grave, "his precious man would have been ripped apart at the fibers of his being. That man's mind, body, soul, and all the ties that bind him would be torn down, consumed, and thrown at a crossing in life's journey that neither takes him to heaven nor hell. Normally, his soul would be absorbed and used as fuel for another kind of life in a subsequent realm, but with this…"

Edward suddenly stopped himself. Something within his mind told him to narrow his focus and stop the train of thought before it moved too fast. Slowly, Ed's brow rose again and he could feel his heart trip up as it began to race. He turned the sheet around again to look at the configuration more closely. Wildly he ran projections, computations, assumptions, theories, and outcomes through his mind.

"… There would be too much to digest. It would probably choke," lost in his thought, his shoulder slowly fell and his eyes widened as he spoke to himself, "… are you serious?"

Thomas was left standing without a word for his verbal sparring partner. The Englishman watched as Edward turned the paper around, flipped it over, spun it upside down, and held it up over his head.

"That is disgusting, Edward Elric," the unwelcome addition to the room finally spoke, "these things you're playing with, they have no place in this King's country."

"Oh, I agree," he answered swiftly, all the while his gaze continued to pierce into the fibers of the sheet of paper in his hand as he began a slow inquisition of the ludicrous and disturbing idea in his fingers, "my dad comes in early tomorrow morning, right? I'll ask him if we can leave and I'll take my ideas with me. Put in a good word for me, okay?"

* * *

The bustling halls seemed to stretch forever throughout the building. Every blue-dressed military official moved through the hall either chattering with a companion or locked in silence within his or her own thoughts. They all seemed so disinterested in what moved outside their own bubble. The allowance of Central Headquarters to be divided equally between military and government officials created a mix of society's people. Security was in mild shambles and still not certain how to proceed for fear of creating strife between the two distinct factions. At this point in time, no one would question an extra face and Izumi Curtis was the only face of the travelling lot that could not be distinctly recognized walking through Central headquarters.

With her hair down and dressed in a simple burgundy peddler's dress picked up from a market on their way into town, Izumi continued her march through the building. The group had arrived in Central early that morning and Izumi's instructions to start the day were simple. The outcome would be predictable provided she abstained from using any alchemy to turn the building into her own rendition of modern art. For the sake of everyone involved, Izumi had no intention of creating an utter mess like the last time she'd barged into a federal building.

Stopping in yet another hall she'd been freely allowed to wander down, the woman confirmed the room number written down and gave a firm knock to the door with her ring-bearing hand.

"Enter."

Without flinching, Izumi did just that.

"Can I help you?" the voice came without looking up.

The teacher's abrasive voice broke out, "This is supposed to be the office of Brigadier General Roy Mustang and you are not him."

The structured face of Hakuro snapped up a narrowed gaze at the intrusive woman, "He is no longer in this office. What business do you have here?"

The woman's hands came to her hips; her voice as firm and powerful as ever, "His office is in charge of the investigation, reconstruction, and restoration for the main Central Market group. Myself and other families are looking for the compensation promised by this office that has not been delivered by your establishment. Our own funds are nearly gone and we have children to feed and clothe. Unless you plan on putting diapers on our babies and food on our tables, you need to get me the person in charge of this issue _now_."

"Who let you in here?" Hakuro abruptly questioned her with a mixture of ire and panic seeping into his tone.

"No one. I walked in," ironically, it was the only piece of truth Izumi would speak, "who the hell are you?"

Clearing his throat, Hakuro quickly scraped together a method of expelling this woman who'd unlawful entered a government office. The last thing he wanted was for it to become public knowledge that a member of the general public had actually been able to enter this far into a government facility, "I am Major General Hakuro and I can't help your situation at the moment, unfortunately. I'm not the individual you need to speak with. But, I can set you up with an appointment agent who can arrange for you to sit down with one of our compensation workers and irons things out."

"That lazy twit you have working in appointments turned me away. You think I'm going to trust her to actually complete the job just on your say so?" Izumi threw some snap into her tone, "If I leave this office without any type of satisfaction, I can guarantee our families won't be getting any of our promised compensation and I will not stand to let that happen Mister Major General Hakuro," Izumi took a delightful pleasure from watching the man boil as she berated him, "at least the last occupant of the office did me the courtesy of snagging some useful four-eyed thing who did up papers and got us store tickets. Those are about to run out. I want to work that arrangement with her again."

Moving from his desk, Hakuro played along with the situation, extending a casual arm towards the office door to escort his intruder out, "If I can get her name, I can certainly try and set you up. Believe me when I say that ensuring that the Central Market and all its resident retailers are well taken care of is a high priority issue."

"But it's not _your_ problem," Izumi's eyes rolled.

"It is a problem," the man fought to keep his cool, "it just doesn't fall into my sphere of influence. We have some good people taking care of that, just give them a little time," taking hold of the door handle, one of the highest ranking officers in the complex opened the door for Izumi and gingerly escorted her into the hallway, "If we're running short on time, then there's no need to create a mountain out of a mole hill. If you'd like to deal with the same people you dealt with before, I can arrange it."

She could have giggled with how amicable he was trying to be. Turning herself around to look the general square-on as he deliberately accompanied her out of the office, probably to ensure she didn't burst back in on him, "I had this young four-eyed girl named Schezque or something working the issue and she gave me nice little Band-Aids for the problem," Izumi swung her arms up and crossed them at her chest, "If she's still kicking around, I'd like _her_ to get us another box of Band-Aids, please and thank you Major General Hakuro."

"I should be able to find someone with a name like that. I'll check the department rosters…" sighing, Hakuro seemed reluctant to take more than three steps away from the office door; deliberately standing between the office and the steadfast woman, "If you head back over to the desk on the second floor, I will give a call around to a few departments, see where she turns up, and have her sent over to Appointments to give you a hand."

"Oh no you don't!" Izumi's hands came crashing to her sides; she had no idea where the heck Appointments was on the second floor. Raising a pointed finger at the man, the adlibbed tirade continued, "I'll get myself over there and someone will say they have no idea what's going on and I'll have to haul my ass back here to raise more of an issue than what this needs to be."

"Ma'am you need to understand-"

"No, I've done my share of understanding. You think I like scrounging for money and pawning my things so I can afford the basics in my life!" she watched Hakuro grow un easy and she began to realize there were people in the hall watching her little escapade, "I don't have the luxury of your paycheque to pamper my ass with. If you're going to call around to track down this girl for me, I'm going to stand right here until she shows up, then I don't have to track you down again and make a scene when she doesn't appear. I know how you government types function – pawn off your problems. Perfect bureaucracy," Izumi wrinkled her nose, calmed her voice and re-folded her arms. Her tone was adjusted to contain a touch of sweetener, "I assure you, when she shows up here I'll be out of your way. Promise."

Hakuro sighed, the absolute last thing he wanted on his plate today was a public relations disaster, and the louder her voice got, the more it was becoming one. Ears and eyes were sneaking peeks at the event. The thought of having to explain away why security had to haul out a screaming victim of the Central Market fiasco would be glorious fodder for anyone looking for more reasons to cause issues for this new regime. Everyone in the nation was growing aware of the bureaucratically charged messes that bogged down many of the ongoing efforts in areas that stretched far beyond the Central Market – trials and tribulations of a new government, or so people were told.

Raising a hand to rub over the back of his neck, the officer relented. At least the woman would be in the hall and not interrupting him in the office. It would be quicker to summon someone to this location anyways, and as long as the woman was satisfied with someone beyond himself helping her out, he would take it with a grain of salt.

"You'll have to be patient, she may be on break or involved in a task."

"I will create patience out of my worn out patience if you're going to get the job done for me," Izumi gave a careless shrug, leaning her hind-side against the wall across from the door. She did indeed have patience, a great deal of it if it would get this job done. What was lacking was time. Izumi sincerely hoped that standing around, waiting to pass along a message in a bottle, wouldn't put a crimp in everything.

A pleased grin showed up in her expression when she heard Hakuro lock the door behind him upon re-entry of the room. She glanced down through the ends of the hall, watching as the curious onlookers dispersed into their workdays.

'_Hm, I bet Mustang'll have kittens when he finds out he's been expelled from his office…' _she thought.

* * *

The voices could be heard street side, though muffled by walls and doors into incoherent shouting. A passerby might stop to wonder what could have a house up in such a frenzy; it didn't matter though, it wasn't _their_ house to fuss over, so they would just keep walking. The warm billowing of heat escaping from a burning fireplace was a little thicker and a little darker than normal – but nothing beyond ordinary. And then the voices flared up again; it was as though the walls of the house yelled at the neighbourhood. The voices that gave the walls inanimate life thundered around in the middle of winter.

"WHAT! You're just going to let him DO THAT!" Edward's voice tore out, flustered and irate. Unable to throw himself free without a second arm, Ed had been restrained by his father; a strong right hand holding his good arm while the man's left hand held firmly at the back of Ed's fully buttoned shirt.

Charles Wilson added a handful of papers to the fireplace.

Just as it had happened years before, Thomas had alerted the doctor about Edward's interests in alchemy. And again Hohenheim held back his vile son, watching the days of work burn in the fireplace.

"Do not make this worse. You can rewrite your notes, Edward," the father spoke low, with only enough effort for his son to hear.

"Say that a bit louder!" livid, Edward pushed away into the hallway, rather than continuing his charge into the core of the household, "say that a bit louder so the good doctor can hear I'm not the only nut job under the roof. SAY IT."

Hohenheim let his glasses slide down his nose a little farther, casting his retaliatory gaze over Ed's torrent voice and refusing to engage him verbally.

"Maybe if he went through your things instead of _my _things he'd get to see it," the youngest man in the room threw his left arm out wildly, "your name is even in the goddamned book!" his hand swung to point accusingly at his father, but his voice continued to be projected throughout the house. His raised index finger continued to flail around the hall while his words were deliberately sent tumbling in Doctor Wilson's direction, "The teaching thing is all a cover, because he's a better alchemist than me!"

The elder father's brow lowered sharply, "Edward…"

"And YOU," Ed spun back to challenge Hohenheim's call of his name face-to-face, "are a shitty ass, pathetic excuse for a father!"

"… _Shut up_."

"WHY!" Ed threw his voice around angrily; there was nothing more that he was able to do about any of this beyond yell, "No one seems to listen to what I have to say! Everyone here has always seemed to think that I'm either a problem on two legs or a couple cards short of a full deck, and for SOME reason they think they all know how to set me right," his voice sharply pitched with disdain and mockery of the British accent, "_Poor old Hohenheim got stuck with that foul Edward_. _What a burden that boy must be some days._ Don't think I haven't heard these people say that about me before."

Drawing a deep breath in through clenched teeth, Hohenheim inflated his chest bound with folded arms, casting his shadow a little more prominently over his son, "Are you deliberately trying to turn this day inside out, Edward?"

The vile son beamed with malice, "YES, I am! He's _burning_ my research and you're stopping ME, not HIM!"

"Can you finish making noise sometime soon, Edward?" Wilson's voice ran through the house, annoyed and empty of patience again.

Ed's hand slapped down against his side, "See? Not listening."

"I have no problems with my listening skills Mr. Elric, and I'm certainly glad that your father has enough sense to know which one of us is in the wrong here. Though, you are acting like quite the child, _again. _I wish someone would treat you like one - throw you over his knee and tan your backside red with his belt," his gaze cast over Hohenheim as the father of the howling son gave a darkened warning glance in return. With every footstep Charles took, the man's stiff voice came marching down the hall towards Edward, "what book is this you're mentioning? That's the second or third time you've referred to a book and I didn't see any book belonging to you or your father when I swept my house for your craft."

As though playing to a crowd, Edward began to laugh. It was so hearty and contrived that the bitter taste in his sound gave the two elder men cause to tighten their expressions, "I don't know what you're talking about! I have no book for you to burn!"

Slowly, Hohenheim's hands rose to his face, slipping under his glasses to give a deep rub to his eyes. He was going to have an uncompromising headache; he could feel it coming.

Wilson's face narrowed, fighting to keep his voice in check – his throat was already sore from earlier, "I think Germany has made you more belligerent than before you left. I will not tolerate your shenanigans under my roof, I know you are aware of that, and hiding it in your belongings doesn't change that."

Ed rolled his eyes and refused to acknowledge the memories of this place he tried hard to purge, "You know, there are famous people in your recent history who tried to understand alchemy and I don't see you chastising them! They're even included in your education system!"

"Those men were from a different time and a much less modern era. We're far wiser now than we were before, so those men's ignorance can be forgiven," with each few words he strung together, Charles' voice rose, "your actions cannot, because you are neither stupid nor ignorant. You are a fool. You _acknowledge _alchemy to be a useless science, yet you continue to construct these ridiculous things and ideas as though you're hoping something may change," the doctor's voice dropped to the floor, "you make no sense. So, the nonsense will be discarded and you will use your brain to find something _else_ to do with your spare time," Wilson's eyes slipped from the boiling man to his unsettlingly frozen father, "won't he, Hohenheim?"

There was no response.

Ed snorted, the bridge of his nose knotted up as his face contorted, "This from a guy who bases his actions on instructions created from a fear-mongering interpretation of a convoluted work of fiction that talks about people who did unreal and ridiculous things hundreds of years ago. I do not see how I'm the one who's the fool."

Steeped with serious warning, Hohenheim's voice finally rose up, "Edward Elric, that's _enough_ from you."

The announcement of his name by his father was the cue for the son to step up to a tumultuous line drawn in the sand, "Oh come on, don't tell me you haven't been itching to tell any one of these prawns a good reason why God doesn't exist?"

The conversation would end there. Without another verbal warning, Edward found himself lurched around by a hand that suddenly appeared; taking firm hold of him at the front of his shirt. He blinked into the startled realization that he was nose to nose with his father.

"I think it's time you took a walk," the father's stone voice instructed.

Ed's eyes narrowed, his voice lowering, "I told you I hated this place. I told you over and over…" he found himself surprisingly off balance as the hand with his shirt beneath his chin drove him backwards towards the house's entry way, "and over and over…'

"Come back when you can keep your tongue down and we can have a proper conversation," the father's voice matched low and so deep that it vibrated around them as though the pair stood together within an oil drum. Hohenheim's hand ripped Edward's vest and coat from the closet as he marched his son towards the door.

Ed didn't care if his father had wanted to keep the doctor from hearing their words or not, his voice again rose loud and coarse, "You're just too busy bending over and letting this place have its way with you. Too afraid to have these people think that you're more screwed up than your kid," Edward's good left hand come to firmly grip the hand at his chest, though it could offer no fighting challenge.

Hohenheim released his son without warning and watched as he stumbled at the door, "You know where I stand and what my answers are. Throwing a fit won't change that," the elder Elric created a free hand by throwing the coat over his shoulder and returned his attention squarely to Edward, "I am extremely picky when it comes to the battles I choose to take on in this world. Some fights just aren't worth it."

Ed opened his mouth to speak, but ended up startling as the hand Hohenheim had him with returned. The towering father reached beyond his son and threw open the front door. Ed planted his feet in defiance – his good foot in front and his replica behind him. Spitting out a slew of profanity in defiance, Edward ultimately managed to accomplish nothing beyond further frustrate and infuriate the contents of the house, all the while allowing the cold winter air to drain in and pool at everyone's feet. Ed's hand fought with the fist that had hold of his shirt, but eventually lost the entire battle at the door when Hohenheim lurched his son up off his feet with the power in his monstrous right arm and forcefully placed Edward Elric outside the front door.

The obstinate young man had tried to remain standing, but the spare wooden leg had not cooperated as it should have and Ed found himself flat on his ass on the front walkway. Before even being able to get his bearings again, Edward was digging out from beneath the coat that had been thrown over him. Fumbling to his feet, and eyeballing the more than delighted doctor standing in the shadows of the house behind his father, Ed pulled himself up straight and sharply threw his coat over his shoulders. He stood a moment in the walkway, staring back at the exterior of the building that his outbursts had caused him to be evicted from. For that moment, all three men finally wore silence. Without another word, Ed turned and marched himself down the walkway, unfazed by the sound of the door slamming shut behind him. He would give no one the pleasure of being forced to _ask _to return. Though the buttons down the front of his coat hadn't been done, Ed dropped his good hand sharply into his left pocket and continued to walk away.

* * *

The entire summer could pass by like this and Pinako wouldn't mind. She was neither a farmer nor a rancher, so the constant sunshine was grand. The sun lit the countryside, gave way to warm evening shadows, and generally was the most naturally pleasant thing about where she lived. The fans would run to keep things cool indoors, the neighbours were too far away to notice if the heat caused her to dress a little unsightly, and as much as she loved her granddaughter, it was days like this that she appreciated how Winry had other interests that would allow her to enjoy this day all to herself.

Den suddenly barked.

Pinako grinned to herself. She couldn't forget to include the dog in the day's enjoyment.

Den barked again and it woke the baby the animal protected.

Pinako glared at the wall, unimpressed by the fraying coming loose around the edges of the day.

Den barked again and again. It was the 'someone new is at the door' bark. Pinako chomped down on the stem in her mouth and threw on something presentable as she flew through the upper floor of the house. Dropping a bottle in for the baby, and stomping down the stairs from her second floor workroom, she was finally able to hear the knock on the door that had her dog all out of sorts.

"Hold your horses, I'm coming. Don't anger my dog. Damn it all."

She marched to the door and unlatched the hook. Nobody shows up on days like today; it was simply rude. Everyone in the country knew that. It must be a buffoon from out of town, since it was simply too hot for normal or knowledgeable customers to show up in the mid-day sun. She'd thought about saying something in a sarcastic tone along the lines of 'what can I do for you today?' or some other pleasant words in a crude tone, but when she finally opened the door she suddenly wielded a very scripted response.

"I have no interest in assisting the government or military today. I have no donations to provide. There is no one in this house to conscript. You will leave my property now. Good day."

"I'm sorry ma'am," the voice was as generic sounding as the young man's face was to look at. At the AutoMail engineer's door stood two young, clean cut, freshly shaven, identically dressed men, "but we have a warrant to search this property."

That was a new catch line for a uniformed officer at her doorstep. This time it wasn't a military officer delivering a message to her door; it was a government officer that, along with the statement, ensnared the old woman's undivided attention, "A search warrant? For here?" she pulled open the door, "what on earth for?"

"It's printed in the warrant, Ma'am," came the other generic voice as he handed her the folded wad of legal papers, "may we enter?"

"Boy, I may not be a proponent of all the laws of this land but I am still a law abiding citizen," she stepped away from the door, unfolding the paper bundle, "if the law says you have to enter, then that's what'll happen. I really have no idea what you want from here though."

"Evidence, Ma'am."

Pinako snorted, almost choking on her pipe, "Obviously."

The two men entered and made their way slowly through the main room as the grandmother curled her nose and tightened her brow at the documents she held, "I hate legal papers. Just tell me what matter involves my house?"

Perhaps these young men were twins, or close brothers, because neither showed any particularly distinguishing features from each other. The one stepped away from the mantle as the other approached the staircase.

"I asked a question of the two of you," Pinako snarled, allowing herself to grow annoyed at the intrusion.

"It's for an ongoing criminal investigation, Ma'am. You've been advised."

Pinako could have thrown her pipe at the officer, "Yes, in a document full of fancy speak, young man. I am a mechanic not a legal assistant."

The one officer continued upstairs while the other remained on the main floor, looking over to the stout woman who bubbled at a low simmer, "Lieutenant Jean Havoc has been charged with the abduction of a minor, falsification of records, and destroying evidence. We're here to gather evidence in relation to the charges."

Pinako stood with a curiously confused look in her twisted face at what she'd just heard. Her wrinkled hand slowly removed the pipe from her mouth. She thought for a moment about asking the officer to repeat himself, but realized that she had heard him clearly. That officer's name was familiar, she was certain of it, but for the life of her couldn't pinpoint where she'd heard it.

"Those are serious charges for a military man," she watched as the officer looked her over while she replaced the pipe to her lips. She couldn't place why he had suddenly had such a strange look on his face, "I still don't see what this has to do with my house. I want nothing to do with either the government or the military."

"Did you get the wire, Ma'am?" the voice grew passive, drawing out a strand of meager concern.

Pinako found herself quickly growing to dislike this officer's presence, "Last wire I got was from my granddaughter. She sent me one not long after she'd gotten to Central and that was who knows how long ago. I sent her one back. I told her I'd put money in her bag to buy herself something nice with for her birthday if she ended up being gone that long."

The officer cleared his throat with the warm mid-day air, "You were sent a wire last week prior to our arrival. You were told to expect us."

Folding her arms, the old woman cast a foreboding gaze of doubt over a man at least twice her size, "No wire came for me."

Looking around the room uncertain how to proceed, the young officer seemed to stand in debate of how to proceed with the conversation. He looked to the woman of the house, her foot slowly taping with impatience. Clearing his throat, the officer finally spoke, "I regret to inform you, Ma'am, the minor the Lieutenant is accused of abducting is your granddaughter, Winry Rockbell."

It took a moment to register, but Pinako's pipe finally hit the floor as her voice hit the ceiling, "WHAT!"

"It was in the wire, Ma'am. We'd sent it into your local enforcement office in advance. It was to be forwarded to you," the officer tried to state in his defence.

"I DIDN'T RECEIVE A WIRE, YOU MINDLESS FOOL."

The officer sputtered an apology, trying to explain the situation as best he understood it, but that was entirely insufficient. The woman, barely half the size of the official, very quickly felt himself overshadowed by the elderly lady as she challenged him.

"How long did it take you people to tell this child's legal guardian that she'd gone missing! Have you fools have been sitting on your legal and political asses!" the woman fumed with a red fire that consumed the entire floor and flooded up into the second, "do you know what that poor girl has been through! What our family has been through? We don't need this!"

The old woman's bitter words could be heard echoing across the lush landscape of grasslands that were deeded to the Rockbell and Elric families. Her voice continued aggressively, angrily, and furiously for the whole empty countryside to hear. The words would be useless when all was said and done. All words did was provide a descriptive escape for emotions and not much else. As far as Pinako was concerned, this country's authority establishment was too incompetent for much else to come from her words and it certainly wouldn't solve the issue of her apparently missing granddaughter.

After verbally stripping both officers of every valued moral and shred of decency she could conjure up, Pinako threw her hands up at them, left the officers to her house, and stepped outside in a compact ball of fury. The elderly woman snapped a match into her pipe and took a sharp inhale before practically spitting out the dirty air. Angry and frustrated, she gripped the pipe tight within her teeth and stared off into the countryside. Calming down would be a daunting task. But, as much as she wanted to listen to the rushed feeling in her chest and head to Central, Pinako acknowledged that she should remain in Rizembool. Roze was not back yet and she had left for the Hughes household shortly after Winry had left for Central. The grandmother was left in care of her child and the infant boy's mother hadn't contacted her since departing. The picture of Central being painted at the back of the woman's mind was showcased with no sign, no sound, and no word from anyone who'd left with intentions of crossing that city. The more she thought about that, the more unsettling it was that every voice traveling into Central was falling silent.

Forgoing the idea of heading into the capital, Pinako took a strong mental note to make damned sure she let her local enforcement office have more than a small piece of her mind.

* * *

It was two hours past midnight; the world had gone silent and the world had fallen to dark. There were always so few stars in the sky to accompany the ill light of the moon. So, to compensate for the tired moon, there were porch lights. People used porch lights was like welcoming mats – if the light was on, company was welcomed and if not, then it was a request for peace at night. At this particular house, the light had finally been turned on shortly after a new calendar day had turned over. So, after staring at the glowing doormat until nearly the bottom of the hour, Edward finally decided to be the only intrusion into the sanctum of this house tonight.

"Welcome back."

Or so he'd assumed.

Ed's gaze borrowed into the darkness of the home to identify the location of the voice, slowly shutting the door behind himself, "Why are you still down here?" he asked the voice within the darkness – no candle, no music, no existence beyond the voice. It took only another moment before he realized the sound had come from the sitting room of the Wilson home and Edward's path took him slowly towards it.

"Are you better now?" the old father's voice traipsed through the darkness, "because I did say we'd have a civil conversation."

Ed faintly laughed at the ridiculous notion, his eyes not having adjusted from the outdoor lighting to the complete absence of anything indoors. He squinted as he followed the rug down the hall. Edward allowed himself a moment to think about how strange it was that after such a morning; his father had actually hung around waiting for the civil conversation. Civility usually took a few days to reinstate itself.

"Don't think for a moment you didn't deserve that," Hohenheim's voice came around again, "I _know_ you know better than to even start that line of conversation."

Leaning up against the doorframe to the sitting room, Ed's gaze helplessly canvassed the small, pitch-black room. He stood silently, his eyes slowly adjusting to illuminate the darkness, "Whatever," the pitch in Edward's voice sharply changed, though the volume never rose, "you had the gall to throw me on my ass outside when this problem was yours in the first place," he took a quick glance down to his faux left leg, "I think I need to have Winry look at the leg now – I'm limping. I hope your skull can handle her wrath."

The elder man sighed, shaking his head, and choosing to leave that line of conversation alone, "Speaking of Winry, she was quite smart; she hid the book in her underwear," as unabrasive as his words were, Hohenheim's subsequent sigh drifted through the room like the sound had been ripped from the old man's rotting core, "I asked her to show it to me this afternoon."

Not responding immediately, Ed took a few moments to see if he could figure out just why his father's tone didn't sound right, "… You didn't know the book was coming?" His question was cautious.

"No, it was supposed to be locked away in my office at the university. I've never shown it to anyone," the taste of Hohenheim's words was thick and heavy – wrought with frustration that had simmered for hours in a pool of anger, "Which means someone has gone through my office, found it, and sent it our way to entice you."

"It worked. I'm enticed," the son's words were abrupt, completely disinterested in his father's personal concern for the matter, "And now you get to tell me more about this book before you get going on anything else."

Hohenheim gave a light laugh at the commanding tone his son tried to use. Straightening his back as his hands came down to his knees, he took a deep inhale of the night air, "That thing… it came from a hypothesis I'd thought up a very, very long time ago, after the third time I'd accessed the Gate. At that point, Dante and I had wondered about the possibility of this world being part of the old alchemy folklore. Some things that had been passed down through fables matched far too well," his head slowly drifted upwards as he spoke in thought, "it was never a plausible or functional theory, so I should have left it as a hypothesis. It was impossible to complete without being here. I was the one who'd discontinued it, but Dante was the one who couldn't let it go."

Sliding his hand up the doorframe, Ed gripped the wood with a firm left hand as he continued his questions, "How complete is the version I read?"

Uncertain, the man's head shook, "It's at eighty percent, I'd say – give or take. The information needed to complete the theory is not available; it will never be," Hohenheim inhaled sharply, tightening his jaw before he spoke, "The version that remains with Dante is far less complete. But, she is going to believe that it's much farther along and use it's concepts to access this world."

The mid-night silence drifted through the room again, negotiating with Edward's hand as it slowly slid down the polished wooden frame of the sitting room doorway.

"That's dangerous," he finally said.

Shifting in his chair, Hohenheim looked down into his hands shrouded in the absence of any night light, "Dante'd thought this world was so rich and vast that it had grown beyond any desire for our world; we weren't worthy. We'd been given the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone and could not create it. What failures they must have viewed us as," his words were steeped with hints of sarcasm, as though to mock her assumptions, "She'd concluded that this was why documented stories of travelers from beyond the Gate had stopped. They were always the ones coming to us; but we were never able to get to them… not until we could complete the Philosopher's Stone at the very least. By the time we'd created it, we were far too late to present it to anyone."

Edward's fingers began to drum against the wood, "That's not why they stopped coming."

"If there ever was any honest ability in this world to perform alchemy, it has been lost through natural evolution and no other reason. I do not expect either you or I to ever find out what method it was that this world used to breach the Gate thousands of years ago," Hohenheim's voice and gaze became entangled and then lost to the darkness of the far corner of the room, "that knowledge and information cannot be touched."

Wrinkling his nose, Edward stiffened his jaw and cast aside his eyes, "Even if Dante can't talk to the people of this world's history like she wants, there is a ton of information still here that can make her very dangerous."

"Dante would become a catastrophe," his hands clenched over his knees, "she will seek out a way to stop the degradation of her soul and I have no doubt she would find a solution here. That would make her the nearest thing to immortal either world may ever see. There is also the chance that she could unintentionally destroy the symbiotic relationship between our two worlds with her attempts at breaching the Gate. Who knows what happens from there," the father withdrew his wandering gaze. His old pair of wrinkled hands clasped together as the equally aged set of eyes looked over to his son, "Edward, when you get home, as powerful a person as Dante is now, the knowledge you take with you will make you far more dangerous than she is."

Without taking time to digest the ideas his father had just outlaid, Edward poised a burning question, "Do you know what the sigil on the Thule Hall floor is meant to do?"

Hohenheim's answer was abrupt, "No."

"Bullshit," Ed chirped, "because I think I've figured it out, which means you already know."

Without responding to the accusation, the senior alchemist would keep a quiet moment in time for himself for as long as he chose to burden himself with it. Disinterested in how long that would take, Edward would wait within his father's capsule of time until he spoke again. The dark evening's silence was very glad for the younger man's earlier words, because it would again be allowed to drift into the room while Hohenheim sat without a word. The older man wouldn't allow silence to settle though; scattering it like dust blown from an untouched ledge as he took a deep breath and slowly released it. His clasped set of hands occasionally bounced at his knees as though a conversation were taking place, though no words had been spoken by anyone until Hohenheim finally broke the evening.

"I have no idea how someone managed to conjure that up and I do not want you to even think of using it."

Ed's gaze narrowed, his voice entirely unimpressed, "We _can't_ use it – we're on the wrong side of the Gate. And even if it was workable, I wouldn't take a chance with it unless I had no other choice."

At his son's words, Hohenheim finally rose from his seat, drawing out a path through the darkness of the night towards where Ed stood. His hands drew up as he approached, falling down over his son's shoulders, rocking the young man's balance, "It is _not_ a choice at any point, Edward. It is vile."

The younger Elric paused, caught only for a moment, before the stiff glare returned to Ed's eyes, "I'm going back to Germany. Someone there knows who constructed this sigil and I want to talk to them."

Hohenheim's voice rose over the darkness, "Edward, the only ones who would have the skill to construct that are Dante and Envy and I am certain Dante isn't entirely responsible. You don't know for certain where Envy is."

"Someone knows who drafted that floor ornament, that'll trace Envy, and I'll stay clear. Envy isn't the same this time around. He's restricted to the form of an ordinary man and I have no interest in engaging him," the younger man's face tightened and his words came out as absolutes, "what I am interested in is the route that got him to a point where he could craft that sigil. If he'd been working on a backdoor scheme for Dante about how to forcefully return someone from beyond the Gate, then tracing his footsteps might help us. There has to be more than one way to establish a point from 'there to here' and I'm going to find it. That path starts at the Thule hall."

Hohenheim's jaw tightened, not wanting to bring this overnight hour into an uproar with the issue, "What about Winry? She might not want to return to Germany."

Moving away from the doorframe, Ed's fingers slipped from the polished wooden frame with a squeak, though his feet made next to no noise with each step he took, "She hasn't done anything to anyone that warrants what's been done to her. I want to go home; Al is there and I want to be there for him. But Winry, she _has_ to go home. She'll understand why we have to go back," Ed's eyes quickly shot over his shoulder at the father figure who remained in the doorway, "you can do whatever you want, but I'm done being in London. There's nothing for me here, there never was. It's just a place full of memories that I don't want."

* * *

Both Izumi and Mustang crouched down, their presence masked by the shadow cast by the wall they'd used to conceal their figures. Izumi's nose curled as she forced herself to put up with the body odor stench that was trapped so deep in this building. She continued to wait for Mustang to give her the signal for what needed to be done next.

It had been an orchestrated twenty-four hours. Izumi's message for Sheska contained instructions from Mustang, which the young officer was given the entire day to arrange. There would be no way for the low-ranking woman to get confirmation back to the group that she'd completed the tasks requested of her – Izumi and Mustang would have to fly blind. But, of anyone in the building who could effectively arrange military and government paperwork on short notice, it was bookworm like Sheska. The burden of trust to get things done within a cloak of invisibility was squarely on her shoulders.

Havoc's location had been mapped before Mustang and Izumi had entered the complex and his entire collection of block-mates had been carefully arranged. Mustang had instructed Sheska to coordinate an exceptional collection of men into one spot – a roster that included some of the filthiest to have been put behind bars in the recent years. Now, the task set upon the officer and the teacher was to get in and get out without having their faces seen or themselves identified. Mustang, if he used traditional tactics, would give himself away in an instant, so his behaviour would have to be more in tune with the rest of society. The surplus shop provided the black head-to-toe outfits the pair would use to become shadows and Mustang had been able to retrieve the only black pair of ignition gloves he'd ever had made. They would rely on their own wits, wills, and skills to get through the remainder.

The Brigadier General's eye combed the ceiling, following the cords of hanging lights. In this block of cells at the second basement floor there was one faint clock that ticked away and one pair of soldier's boots echoing on the concrete. The way down this far had been cleared, walls had been moved, floors had been reformed, and shadows had been created. The pair had moved into the crevasse where they now waited.

"Lights," Mustang directed Izumi's attention to a connector box at the ceiling, a half a cells length away from them.

Her eyes picked out the target. Concealed in the darkness, with the silent placement of her hands together, Izumi put her hands to a wall and carried an alchemical command up to the high ceiling. With a slight crack of the concrete, a thin slice of rock severed the electrical cords. The corridor went black.

Mustang had not been given the opportunity to witness Izumi use alchemy until it had been decided that the two of them would be the best suited to complete this mission. Their combination of skill-sets made the job far too easy and, regardless of preference, neither one could deny they'd have to partner up. What surprised Mustang the most about her was not the command she had over her alchemy's precision or quality, but it was watching this woman clap her hands just as he'd watched Edward Elric do numerous times to control everything. She required no sigil, no writing - nothing. He had never thought anyone beyond Edward Elric could do something like that. It wasn't supposed to be unique to the FullMetal Alchemist? How she could learn a skill like that, or how someone as young as Ed could have learnt that skill, he had no idea.

The corridor seemed to have life breathed into the stench as it went black, but no hint of honest concern came into play until Mustang's right fist knocked the one security guard flat on his back. Izumi took care of the rest – her figure carefully following almost directly behind Mustang's movements as she swept in, strapping a heavy piece of electrical tape over the downed guard's mouth before he could call out. With Mustang's knee pushed into the security officer's chest, the man's arms and legs were quickly bound before he could break free from the siege.

Mustang had moved ahead before the final knot was tied. Izumi confiscated the key ring at the guard's hip, collecting the pile of keys in her hand to keep them from making noise. She slapped a single hand to the cement floor twice, her cue to Mustang that she had the task completed. Mustang had already made his way to the far end of the room to work on the next assignment.

First major hurdle had been cleared.

A vigilante's voices called out, wanting to know what was going on. One other called out in concern and another simply laughed.

Mustang's next move would provide the only moments of light they'd have to get their bearings one last time. With his hand placed at the base of the far wall, he sent a charge shooting along the cement. With a spectacular crack, enhanced by a quick dusting of gun powder, the officer brought down the wall. If the guards on the upper levels were at all concerned, it was only a matter of time before someone arrived and broke through the strategically placed obstacles the pair had set up in advance.

Again, they quickly moved. In the light, Izumi had selected a labeled key from the ring and presented it to Mustang as she stepped into his position by the gaping hole in the wall.

There were a total of eight cells in this hall with two men per cell. Havoc occupied cell B2-5, third on the north side. Deliberately, Mustang first unlocked B2-7 and threw the door open wide as the rusted hinges bitterly complained.

"It's jail break time, boys," Izumi suddenly barked, hearing the shrill sound of the cage opening, "get the hell out!"

Whether or not the two occupants of that cell would move or not was something neither Mustang nor Izumi cared about. As long as some of them jumped at this opportunity, they were happy.

Second major hurdle had been cleared.

The key ring was numbered in order; they'd known this in advance, so two keys subsequent from this one was Havoc's. Mustang wrestled with the key in the lock, throwing open the creaking metal bars once the lock surrendered. Through Sheska, Havoc's cell mate had been pre-arranged, as had nearly this entire block. Knowing from the start that Havoc would not bolt in a jail break, Mustang made certain that whoever else was in the cell would most certainly run. Much to the officer's unseen delight, the temporary cellmate did not disappoint. No sooner was the door open than a body blew by Mustang and towards the gaping hole.

"What the hell is going on?" Havoc's voice came out of the dark.

"We're running low on options," Mustang responded as he stepped into the block, his voice stepping below the growing crowd noise. He felt Izumi run up to his side and he handed off the key ring so she could open the last two cells on the pre-planned list.

It had taken a moment of astounded silence before Havoc finally responded again, "… Mus-?"

"Stop," Mustang didn't want his name heard, even if there was little chance anyone would pick it up. He'd figured Havoc wouldn't have any idea it was him until he'd said something. Following the sound of Havoc's voice, Mustang reached out and placed a strong hand on the companion's wary right shoulder, "you need to follow us."

The sarcasm started to leak back into Havoc's voice as he shook off the surprise over his visitor, "Do I get a choice?"

Smirking, Mustang gave a firm slap to the man's shoulder, handing over a firearm borrowed from Major Hawkeye into his other officer's hand, "None whatsoever."

Third major hurdle was cleared.

Staying alongside his superior as best he could with the loss of light, Havoc stopped suddenly when Izumi's hand grabbed his upper arm. He stood stiff in place as her instructions were quietly relayed into his right ear. She finally released his arm and pushed him on his way, back in towards the crevice in the wall the two infiltrators had been tucked away in moments earlier.

With a quick trick of shielded Alchemy, Izumi removed one key from the collection and passed the remainder off to Mustang. The pair split; each moving to one of the four remaining cell doors on the south side and quickly released the end unit's locks. This time, they chose not to throw open the doors and both bolted back towards the entry point where Havoc had slipped away, entirely ignoring the two center cells at the south block. Ducking into the protection of the shadows, and with an emphatic clap of her hands, Izumi slammed her hands against the wall and deliberately set off a wailing prison alarm – she may have cut the trigger when she'd severed the lights, but it still had a perfectly good battery.

"What'd you do that for!" Havoc choked out hoarsely, "what are you two doing?"

"Making it interesting to cover our asses," Mustang reached over and slapped him upside the head, "didn't I tell you to shut up?"

With sound wailing at their ears and an annoying red light pulsing above them, Izumi pulled off one last command and formed a make-shift door at the end of the protected darkness. Without a word, all bodies slipped through the door and she promptly reformed the wall as though nothing had ever happened. The trio found themselves standing atop a staircase that dipped down into an unlit tunnel within the structure.

Final major hurdle had been cleared.

"… What is this?" Havoc tried to peer down, but the darkened corridor hindered his attempts to see much of anything until Mustang finally ignited the lantern Izumi held up for him.

"Well, now you two trolls can add 'Jail Bird' and 'Prison Break' to your resumes," Izumi quipped, pulling the tight fabric of the bodysuit off her head and looking thoroughly disgusted with herself, "I cannot believe I just helped out with that."

"Where are we?" Havoc spoke cautiously, taking a few steps down the narrow hall stairs, lost somewhere between utter fascination and complete shock.

Following Izumi's lead, Mustang pulled his head free of the restrictive face mask and took a deep breath, "The old service corridor that ran along the wing… slightly remodeled."

"I had to rearrange things a bit to keep visitors out," Izumi shrugged, rolling her shoulders to loosen them up, "but it'll take us clear out of the building, no questions asked. Each trigger point we pass, I'll reconstruct it like it never happened. Now, get your asses in gear, I have work to do while you boys fumble around."

Dawning a dumbfounded expression and holding a finger pointed out in front of himself, Havoc turned right around on the balls of his feet and came to face Izumi, looking up at the woman from a few steps lower than where she stood, "And who the hell are you?"

"Izumi Curtis," she replied indisputably, putting her hands down on her hips.

Havoc slowly tipped his head to the side, a very lost and befuddled look growing over his face as his superior officer grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him further down the stairs.

**

* * *

****To Be Continued…**

**

* * *

****Author's Note:**

I'd always had the idea that Ed's dabbles in alchemy were not exactly supported while he was in England – but he was able to branch out once he left. Thomas and Charles behaviour is not a reflection on everyone's reaction towards alchemy though - these two just have extreme reactions that developped over time. What Thomas and Charles have going for them though (and Hohenheim too) is 2-ish years of pulling their hair out from trying to figure out Ed while he'd lived there. Ed is extremely stubborn and tends to listen to himself first and others much later. That would frustrate anyone raised in a very structured and obedient world.

A couple of 'typos' were pointed out that I chose not to correct – Canadian English has a few minor spelling differences from American English (like defence is spelt with a C instead of an S). I guess that kind of makes it hard to tell if I've actually misspelled something or not (I know MS Word hates me lol).

**Comments:**

Thank you for your comments again :). And I'm glad to see there are some new readers as well. Thank you! (I do like comments, I can't deny that lol). I'm not sure if it's common place (or proper) anymore to respond to any particular comment as an appendix in the story like this or separately with the reply feature. But thanks you again X3


	28. At Crossroads

**He Who Searches For Himself**

* * *

**Previously **

**Front Side of the Gate (Alphonse)**

Izumi marched her way into Central, and by the careful instruction of Mustang, helped arrange the breakout of Lt. Havoc from the Central Prison. Meanwhile, word has made its way out to Pinako that Winry is missing.

**Back Side of the Gate (Edward)**

Ed suffered a succession of fallouts with the people around him, beginning with Thomas's fuss over Ed's interest in alchemy. The disagreement worsened when Dr Wilson comes home and burns Ed's work. Frustrated, he decides to return to Germany.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 79, Part XXVIII – At Crossroads**

"Does summer NEVER end?" Russell whined, slouching down in the rotting wood pew as the day's sun showered the roof above their heads. The old church the Tlingum brothers sat in was bathed in colour, created by the multi-coloured stained glass windows high above their heads. The boys baked in the sweltering room. The summer day was quite nice, but there was practically no draft in this building, even with the multitude of broken windows – not like there was any wind outside to stir things up anyways.

Not unless you stood by the basement entrance.

"We were _this_ close to getting our job wrapped up," Russell whined, pouring a bit of his bottled water over a rag and slapping it over his face as he dumped himself back into the old wood again, "if that angry little ankle-biter hadn't buggered things up we could have just gotten it all done and booked it out west again, but NO. My life isn't that easy."

Again the voices within the old abandoned church fell silent; nothing moved and nothing stirred. Both boys listened to the silence, waiting for the sound of footsteps to return. Russell was right, they had been 'this' close to getting their job wrapped up, but their designated assignment from Izumi hadn't been completed as ordered. The escort mission past West City had been short a few bodies, through no fault of the boys, and the pair had to make a choice: stay beyond the country border as ordered with the Hughes family, or go back and retrieve what was left behind. The brothers chose the latter, and the decision was proving problematic.

"You're awfully quiet, you know," Russell finally spoke up in spite of the moment.

Laying down against the seat board of the pew in front of his brother, Fletcher shifted a bit, his eyes staring ahead to the roof above, "I'm just thinking about it, that's all. I'd never seen it before."

"Yeah," the elder brother drew out slowly, "that empty city is terrifying to look at, especially from above," pausing a moment at his last word, Russell sat up, ripped the moist towel from his already damp face and looked around the building sharply, "why did we get roped into coming here again?"

"You're here to see Dante too!" a little voice chirped.

The moments of hesitation were followed by the scream both boys let out as they scrambled from the pews and fell into the isle.

"Oh, shit," Russell stood, wide eyed and squared around, his brother tucked in behind him as he stared back at Wrath, standing at the other end of the long length of seat.

Taking a little bit more than a moment to assess the situation, it was Fletcher who realized something was a little odd with this frozen situation, "Are you okay, Wrath?"

The little creature's face twisted; his expression mild and aloof, "I'm hungry, do you have food?"

"Uh huh?" his expression soaked with suspicion, Russell straightened himself as his younger brother stepped out from around him, "why, you can't feed yourself?"

"I'm tired of garbage," the little boy whined as he hopped up onto the rickety seat and began to walk the length of the pew, his arms suddenly fanning out at his sides, "and I have to do sooo much first before Dante says she'll give me any red stones, so I'm hungry! Red stones are tasty, but I'm hungry for anything."

Exchanging glances, the brothers eyeballed the scrawny, auto-mail equipped, bushy-haired homunculus as Wrath lazily walked himself towards them.

"When you don't have any red stones, then you're not violent," moving up next to the bench's ending arm, Fletcher leaned up against it as he waited for Wrath to finish his approach, "I think that's what we were told. Have you run out of red stones, Wrath?"

"Loooooong time ago," the boy drew out his words as his head and chin swung from one shoulder to another, his words almost musical, "and Dante won't give me any more."

"Good," Russell snorted. Coming up next to his brother, he placed one hand on the boys shoulder and another on the back of the seat, "we don't need to be worrying about you too. Where did you come from?"

"Downstairs in the city," the little monster answered frankly, without care to the importance of his answers, "Dante wasn't home, so I guess I have to go and do things," the creature's arms bounced off its sides as he hopped off the seat, jumping over Fletcher as the young brother ducked and landed on the dust ridden floor, "I'm reallyhungry though, do you have something I can eat, please?"

Again the bothers shared an exchange of befuddled glances before Fletcher moved to retrieve his bag, "I have a bun you can have, I guess."

Quite put off by the beaming smile the homunculus gave, Russell kept a wary eye on both Wrath and his brother as Fletcher fished around in his bag, "You said Dante's not here?"

"Oh no," Wrath shook his head, wrinkling his nose with a pouting lower lip, "she had to go do things. So you can go do your other things too."

Bringing a hand to his forehead, Russell swept away the sweat trailing down. His attention followed his younger brother as the boy handed Wrath a soft bun from their bag. Both boys took a sharp step backwards when Wrath ravaged, and almost instantly devoured, the bun with savage glee.

"That was yummy! Thanks!" he beamed.

"… Yeeeeah, um, no problem," Russell gave a few flicks of his wrist to tell his brother to get over to his side, _now._

His attention and head swinging between both boys like a little puppy as they moved, Wrath tilted his head and asked a curious question, "How come you two came to see Dante?"

"We didn't," Fletcher answered, "we're waiting on a friend."

"Oh! Well okay then I hope you have fun waiting," nodding carelessly and suddenly rocking sharply on his heels, Wrath turned. With sudden disinterest in the Tlingum brothers, he made his way for the door, "I have to find a friend too, so I have to go!"

An alarm suddenly went off in Russell's head as he watched Wrath make an abrupt exit, "What friend are you looking for!"

"What friend are you waiting for!" Wrath called back, not stopping his hurried pace as he took off.

"Right," Waving a dismissing hand, Russell let the creature go, "whatever."

As Wrath left the building, it was Fletcher who curiously followed the path the homunculus took to the only outside door this building had to offer. With his hand clenching over the warm door-handle, he watched Wrath meander away into the township that surrounded them.

Folding his arms and coming up to stand at the back of his younger brother, Russell cast a narrow gaze beyond the doors, "That was unsettling."

"Yeah," Fletcher turned from the door and slipped around his brother to move back into the core of the religious oven. The younger boy didn't get back to the seat he'd intended to sit down at; the sound of echoed footsteps caught the attention of both brothers.

Swiftly walking past his younger brother, Russell made his way to a makeshift archway that had been constructed. It burrowed down, deep through the floor of the holy structure. As though it would bite or burn if he weren't careful, the elder brother gingerly placed his hand down on the dirt arch and peered in, "Did you find anything you were looking for, Roze?"

An answer was not immediately forthcoming. And Russell took a step back to allow her to come out. Lowering her head to clear the arch, Roze dusted her hands off on her dress, "I don't think so."

Russel's shoulders fell as the woman and her words re-emerged, "Then we came here for nothing."

"Oh no," Roze shook her head, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, "coming here is never for nothing," raising her smile, she turned to Fletcher as he joined his brother, "you can close it now, though. It's been exposed to fresh air long enough. We have to get going."

* * *

"Surprise!"

Winry stepped back from the door she'd opened, a grin splashing over her face, "Well, hello there!"

"Winny!" Margaret scampered past her mother and into Winry's legs as quickly as she could muster, "Hi Aunty Winny!"

"Hello there, little Margaret," Winry crouched down, glancing up to Patricia as the mother closed the Wilson's door behind her, "look at you, all bundled up in your winter coat and little boots. I bet you were the cutest thing that anyone saw the whole way here."

"Yay!" the little girl chirped and Winry started to unbundle her.

Taking off her own coat and slipping it into the closet, Patricia looked down to Winry, "Don't worry about that, Love. I can take care of her."

Dismissively, Winry waved her hand, "Naw, I'm fine! Doesn't take a lot of Aunty Winry effort to unwrap a little girl, does it Margaret?"

"Nope!" the little child bounced.

Hearing the commotion, Ed poked his head around the corner from the top of the stairs. Gazing down the stairwell, he called out, unable to clearly see the front entrance below, "Winry, who's at the door?"

It was Patricia who stepped forwards, sticking her head into the landing at the bottom of the stairs, "Good afternoon, Edward."

"Oh," his brow rose, not expecting to see her, "hey, Patti. Um…" he looked back down the hall and suddenly vanished, "hang on."

Tilting her head, Patti left Margaret to Winry and took a few steps up the stairs, "Are you alright, Edward?"

"I only have one leg on!"

The absurd sounding statement from Ed tumbled down the stairwell and it made Patricia laugh. The woman shook her head and climbed the remainder of the stairs, "I drew a very funny picture of you in my mind just now, Edward."

"Sorry! Winry was adjusting the leg when you knocked, what brings you out?" Edward's question came out from the room he'd ducked into.

Patricia moved towards the sound, peeking in around the corner of the doorframe to see Edward sitting on the corner of Winry's bed, his white dress shirt hanging down long around a pair of black shorts and his faux leg on the bed. It was odd to see Ed without two legs and then to see the bare _stump _of his left leg was even stranger.

"Well, since we're sitting," Patti turned to close the door to Winry's room and reached out to collect the stool that sat below the window, "I wanted to talk to you."

At those words, Ed grew suspicious, and his suspicion came out clear as day in his words, "You wanted to talk to me, or Thomas sent you to talk to me?"

The young woman ran the words through her mind as she sat herself down upon the stool, deliberately placed between Edward and the door, "Thomas did ask me to talk to you, but the words are my own," watching as Ed opened his mouth to voice a protest, the mother raised her hand and requested that he hush his voice from the air, "Please, just listen to what I have to say."

Casting his gaze around the room, Ed found a growing desire to groan in frustration, "Alright."

Properly placed upon the stool, hands daintily clasped in her lap, Patricia took a breath and began, "Do you remember a few years back when we took two weeks and went to Scotland?"

Ed ran the memory through his mind, "Yeah, I remember."

"I remember you said that you liked Scotland; there were wider spaces and fewer people. You'd said it reminded you a bit of some places you'd been to as a child," the woman's hands slid out to rest over her crossed knees as she drew in a deep breath, "you'd also said you wanted to go back someday. So, I was thinking that if you and Winry would like, I have some friends who could find you somewhere nice up there…"

"No Patti," Ed raised his hand to bring an end to the conversation.

She ignored him and continued, "…And you'd find it calming, you could relax in the countryside, and let all of these worries go…"

Sitting forwards, unable to approach while not dressed with both legs, Ed stiffened his tone, "No Patti, I'm sorry. I'm going back to Germany."

"But why? I honestly don't understand," the properly poised woman seemed to come undone from his response. It was apparent in her collapsing posture, in her pleading voice and in her knotted expression that she simply could not understand Edward's reasoning, "You could have so much going for you if you could just stop and think for a while. What good do you do for yourself, Winry, or your father by running around the continent so aimlessly?"

His eyes having already dropped away and his lower lip being ground down by his teeth, Ed couldn't even begin to properly answer her, "I'm sorry Patti," he reached around sharply for his leg, "I get that everyone is worried about Englishmen in Germany, but that's just-."

"That's just it, Edward," Patricia interrupted him, her voice pleading, "You say you're English, but you're obviously not."

Ed found himself stopped by her statement.

"And you're not Scottish, Irish, French, Spanish, Danish, German or anything else for that matter," she sharply let go a sigh that was more frustration than exasperation, "I can't place you anywhere; you're quite to the contrary of every walk of person I've ever met. No one can ever figure out where you're coming from or where you're going to. I'm certain you must worry everyone you meet."

At the edge of Winry's bed, Ed tightened his jaw and sat without any verbal response to her. His gaze carried down to examine the faux left leg in his lap that he used his good left hand to fondle. Between his thumb and index finger, he repeatedly unsnapped and re-sealed a fastener. He had wanted to reply with something like 'well that's their problem' but couldn't bring himself to give _her_ that quip.

Having not received any type of retort to her statement, Patti continued, "Before you'd arrived, your father had called us. He was so worried after what had happened with you and your arm; truly worried, Edward," the young woman stood up and, with the sweeping motion of her hands over her backside to smooth her skirt, sat down next to him on the bed, "he knows that you and Charles don't exactly see eye to eye, so he arranged for their trip together – just to give you and Winry some time to find something comfortable about being here. We had hoped you would find some kind of peace here on your own, without persuasion."

With his eyes cast down and away from the side she sat at, Ed continued to withhold any reply. What a difficult sound to argue with – his mother's voice.

Reforming her proper posture and setting a composed tone back into her voice, Patti continued, "Then you started playing with alchemy again and the things that everyone wanted for you came undone, because now your head is full of foolish ideas and you're going to go back to Germany," the woman ran her hands over her skirt as though to smooth it more than it already was, "And I'm sure alchemy is fun and all for you, but you could be doing so much more with yourself than playing with impossibilities."

A grin came over Edward as she said that, and he put the spare leg aside. Pulling up the good right leg to his chest and wrapping it with the good left arm, Ed put his chin down on his knee and gave her the courtesy of looking her in the eye as he handed a smile over to her, "I like impossibilities; they make life interesting. I'll take them any day over what my alternatives are. I don't want the life that everyone seems to think is best for me; I am not willing to accept this as my life. I belong somewhere else. Your intuition is right; I don't have a place here."

"Don't twist my words like that, that's not what I meant," though her words were scolding, her voice was tempered. Patti's shoulders slowly fell, as did her voice, "I cannot find a way to see things from your perspective, and I just don't want to see you being so narrow and stubborn. What will it take for you to draw the line with all this?"

Wrinkling his nose at the question, Edward didn't want to think of that – he'd never allowed himself to think of that, "What would it take…?" he spoke his thoughts aloud, trying to refuse himself the opportunity to even entertain any idea to what that might be, "I don't know, I'm not sure."

Patricia examined the look that grew over his face as he fought away any potential ideas, "And what happens when you do know?"

"Well…" Ed rocked his chin atop his kneecap, trying to shut the valve off to his flow of thoughts. There was nothing this world could offer him that could ever convince him to back down and there would be no guessing to what might dissuade him either, "I guess I'll call you about Scotland if that happens."

Lowering her head, the woman swallowed the response most unwillingly and pulled herself to her feet. She responded to the statement with a quietly disappointed word, "Alright."

* * *

There was a stagnant and stiff aura in the air. One by one, as the day's clock wound down, government officers and the highest-ranking military officials left the Prime Minister's office. The official office room had finally been completed only a few days prior, and it had kept a constant stream of visitors from all angles and walks of authority. Beyond his direct aids, General Hakuro had become a constant fixture in the office, practically having the title of military liaison shoved down his throat.

As one of the last aids departed from the room in the later day, Nina slipped in around the exiting man. Standing just steps inside the door that swung shut behind her, she looked between her 'father' and Hakuro; both men seemingly shrouded in clouds of frustration and exhaustion. Hands were at their heads and their noses were deep in paperwork.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Nina asked, stepping into the dimmed room.

Both Mitchell and Hakuro lifted their heads from their paperwork, looking surprised at the unexpected intrusion.

"Nina, darling, how did you get in here?" Mitchell asked, clearing away a few sheets of paper in a rush.

Looking back to the closed door, Nina answered, "The officer who just left let me in, but the secretary brought me up. Aisa and Diana are downstairs," she turned back to the two men, "Daddy your work should be done by now, we were supposed to go out for dinner."

Running his fingers over his eyes to wipe away a blur of paperwork, Mitchell looked to Hakuro; the man remained silent in both voice and demeanor, "I did say that, didn't I?"

The wide set of the imposter's eyes again looked between the two remaining men in the tired office, "If you're busy, we don't have to go out. We can play games when you get home, maybe?"

Sighing, Mitchell shook his head, "I'm sorry to disappoint you dear, I'm not even sure when I'll get home this evening. You might be fast asleep by then," looking around at the mountains of responsibilities surging upwards; he could only focus on the growing stress he was being buried under, "we're going to have to reschedule entirely."

"Paddy Cake will make you feel better," Nina smiled, walking over to his desk, casting a glance over to Hakuro, "Paddy Cake always makes Daddy feel better. We're practicing for Diana. You should play too."

"Aren't you a little old for Pat-a-Cake?" Hakuro responded to the little girl as she walked past him, "I don't think your father has time for games, Nina; I certainly don't."

Sauntering around the large desk her 'father' was at, Nina threw a pout-face back to Hakuro, "That's too bad, Mr. Hakuro. I think Paddy Cake is a lot of fun for everyone," putting her hands down on Mitchell's knees, Nina looked up at the man pleadingly as he reached down to pick her up and place her on his desk.

"Hakuro, I'm sorry, would you please excuse us, I need to have a word with my daughter," Mitchell looked seriously into the eyes of a little girl who batted her eyes too sweetly, "she needs to understand a few things about wandering about in this facility."

"Of course, Sir," standing, Hakuro gave a curious eye to the little girl and made his way out of the room.

As the door swung shut, Mitchell took a deep breath, pulling himself up close to the desk in his office chair, "Now Nina…"

"Daddy I'm sorry, I just wanted to practice playing Paddy Cake, so I can teach Diana properly when she's bigger," the little girl's face pouted, swinging her legs freely over the edge of the desk.

The child made the highest-ranked person in the country sigh, and look upon her with a touch of guilt in his eyes, "I understand that, but you need to understand that sometimes this office is not a place for little girls to come in and out of whenever they miss their daddy," he took a gentle hold of the girl's two hands, "There are some very important things that go on here, they aren't places for little girls."

"Important things like what?" she asked innocently.

Sitting back in his chair, letting the girl's hands go he folded his arms in thought of how to explain his statement, "Hmm… legal things, military things, government things, safety things…" he gave a laugh at a passing thought, "things that require a lot of years of education that don't always do you any good."

Pursing her lips and running her hands over the ends of her dress, Nina continued to swing her legs freely, "I heard on the radio that some bad people broke out of jail. I feel safe here with you."

"You're safe at home too, dear," Mitchell reached out with his left hand and gently took her by the chin, "We have one of the safest homes."

Twisting up her face with a frown, Nina wasn't interested in that response, "I'd feel safer if the bad guys were caught. Do you know where they are?"

Patting her on the head, Mitchell sat back, "I'm sorry to say that I don't. Though a couple of the criminals that escaped have been caught, so that's good!"

"Yes, it's good!" Nina grinned, though she allowed it to slowly fade away. Huffing out an elaborate sigh, the little face frowned at the man she called father, "How come it's so hard to figure these things out? Is it really that difficult to catch criminals and find missing people?"

Running his hands over the leather arms of his chair, the Prime Minister sat back and lounged in thought within the chair. He looked to the ceiling as he composed his thoughts for a response, "People are devious, honey. Some people are even evil to the core," he shifted his weight to his left side, leaning into the strong arm of the seat, "Those types of people are the hardest to find and sometimes the smartest out of everyone. We just have to find a way to become smarter."

Nodding sagely as though to accept the response, Nina shuffled herself along the desktop and suddenly grinned wide to her father, "I promise! One quick game of our nightly Paddy Cake practice and I will go home and stay there safe and sound. I bet you'll feel better too."

Relenting, Mitchell held up his hands for her, "Alright, one round of Pat-a-Cake tonight."

Eagerly, Nina flew into a collage of smiles and gleefully clapped her hands and grabbed her 'father's' fingers, "Yay."

The child's limerick sung in the voice of an adult and ancient child echoed within the room. The words matched harmoniously with the electric sound of the child's exuberant handclaps, so rhythmically that Dante could have purred along to the beat. The witch had to focus though; so carefully, so delicately and so precisely for this child's game. If even one touch of her hand wasn't done _just_ right, she would only be a farmer of vegetables, when the song was meant to be about a baker and his oven. She gleefully exchanged a round of silly hand motions in her charade to properly prepare this child's dish. She'd taken so much delight that she found herself giggling by the time they were done.

"What's so funny dear?" Mitchell asked, his hands coming to rest on his lap.

"Nothing," Nina continued to giggle, "I just think I'm getting really good at Paddy Cake."

Shaking his head, Mitchell patted the girl atop her head and pulled her off his desk, "It's not a game that's hard, Dear. Hakuro is somewhat right; you are a little old for it."

"I never played it when I was little, so I'm playing it now! Even an old dog can learn a new trick," Nina announced triumphantly as she skipped around in a circle next to the man. Executing a triumphant pirouette, Nina clasped her hands in front of herself and looked up with a smile to the Prime Minister, "Daddy, what were you so stressed about earlier, exactly?"

Suddenly caught in with honest confusion, Mitchell looked down to the child, "I can't recall if I was stressed about one particular thing; I just have a bunch of signing left to do."

"Oh," Nina twisted her face playfully, clapping her hands like a giggly child, and reaching up to take hold of her father's hands again. The child's touch bled with raw electric power that she'd ensured his body was too numb to feel. She would be the conductor or an orchestra wrought with intangible power, "I thought you were upset because escaped detainee Lieutenant Jean Havoc raped and murdered Winry Rockbell and nobody can find him. That is what happened, isn't it?"

Involuntarily, Dante stopped Nina's heart with anticipation, but only for the moment it took the man before her to pause. She withheld the urge to widen her eyes in curious fascination at whether or not she'd accomplished anything. Alchemy, on a human body, no matter what it was – the Elric brother's notion that they could reclaim their bodies, Tucker's idea of memory implantation, or her own methods of soul suppression & transplantation – always required the most precision, the most expertise, the most concentration, and above all else, most importantly, the Philosopher's Stone.

Mitchell's brow rose with an honest display of amusement and intrigue at Nina's words, "Of course it is, dear. Everyone knows that."

_If you wanted to ensure it was done right, any type of human transmutation, irregardless of what it was, required an egregious amount of Philosopher's Stone…_

Holding tight to his hands, the little girl bounced her undeveloped hips from side to side, her voice ringing with childish delight, "And doesn't it make sense that Mustang, the former Flame Alchemist, must have covered up his comrade's horrid crime by burning her body into an unrecognizable crisp? I mean, he did kill her parents after all."

_… And Dante loathed using what little she had left of it so frivolously, so she'd do her best to use it to place her cards just right…_

"Of course, it makes perfect sense," he said with a laugh, as though there had never been any doubt to that fact. Withdrawing his fingers from her grasp, his hands came down to her shoulders and turned the little girl around and began to usher her out of the room.

… _She'd convinced herself that some things were necessary. She would pay that price begrudgingly; she was too close…_

"Oh goody!" the little girl beamed, skipping ahead at this man's prompting, "I'm so glad to hear that, because when we bumped into the chief of Enforcement in the halls earlier, he said the exact same thing," her tiny hands flared out into the air playfully as she walked up to the door, "I hope you find her charred remains really soon!"

_… And once she reached beyond the Gate, she doubted she'd really need to rely on cuts of a red stone any longer._

* * *

The charm of the hours after sunset most nights was that no one's voice was heard yelling, talking, or interrupting. The evening and overnight darkness would court the silence and dance about freely in the wind until the sunlight rose to chase the darkness into the corners of the world and told silence that it wasn't allowed to entertain in the day. Because of that, Edward was careful – well, only as careful as his creaky bedroom door would let him be. Each step he took down the hall was as quiet as the next. He had no problem letting silence gleefully wrap around him; he preferred this house when it was quiet. Sliding into the bathroom, and picking a glass from the counter, Ed excused himself from silence to run the faucet, only enough to fill the lower third of the glass.

As the glass tipped back to his lips, Winry's hand came out of the darkness and to his shoulder, "Ed?"

The glass very nearly came crashing to the floor as Edward not only spat out the water in surprise, but inhaled most of it first. Bobbling the glass in his hand, he ended up bouncing it into the sink where it clattered around as though it were trapped in an oversized oil drum. The noise was ridiculous and silence was none too impressed with either of them. His flailing left hand finally trapped the noisy, but unbroken object in the sink as Ed bent down at the knees, coughing to expel his drink from his lungs.

"Not supposed to breathe water," Ed's hand left the glass and came down clenched as a sharp fist against his chest.

"Sorry," She apologized as quietly as possible, requesting a hurried return of the silence they'd chased away.

Coughing, and straightening up, Ed looked over to her sheepish expression and whispered, "I thought you said you were going to bed?"

Winry could only shrug, shaking her head in response, "I couldn't sleep. I'm a little anxious about the trip back. I heard your door open, so I came to see if you were up."

Ed looked back to the sink and the glass that had made a ton of racket. Picking it out and setting it back to the counter ledge, he ushered himself and Winry out of the bathroom, "I never went to bed, just dimmed the light," sighing, then coughing once more, Ed turned towards his room, "I've been trying to convince myself I'm wrong."

Wrinkling her expression, Winry cast a curious gaze to him, "About what?"

Ed's hand came to Winry's shoulder and gave her motion to follow, "Come here, I'll show you."

Tailing along behind Edward, the two slipped silently into his room and Winry quietly shut the door behind him, "Show me what?"

Amidst the mess of his belongings, packing and bed sheets, Ed had pushed his bed against the wall and built a nest of new paperwork for himself. Crawling onto the bed and back to the epicenter of all things, Ed reached under the comforter and produced a sheet of paper with the alchemy sigil from the Thule Hall floor. He held it up with the etching facing her, "This. I know what this is supposed to do… and I wish I didn't," he refolded the sheet along the four seams creased through it.

Winry hesitated before replying, her eyes drifting around in thought. Crawling onto the bed and up next to Edward, she sat down at his empty right shoulder and put her back against the wall. Ed handed the sheet to her, watching as she opened it back up.

"What's it do?" she gave it an unknowing stare.

Ed cleared his throat, "I've told you how a rebound works, right? The alchemist isn't able to perform a transmutation properly, so part of the alchemist is used as a substitute for the missing portions," he watched as Winry gave a slow nod. Ed reached across and gave the sheet of paper in her hands a flick, "_This_ circle uses inverted components of some markers used for human transmutation. It rebounds almost instantly, because there is insufficient life energy from the Gate to draw from here, and the equation is designed to seek out an energy source. Ultimately, it deconstructs your existence to try and create the missing energy and cannonballs you into the flow of life traveling to the Gate," he took a moment to take a deep breath before continuing, "When you get to the Gate, the Gate is tripped up because the only thing that should be there is your soul. The mind and body would be kind of like pollutants; they don't belong. So, the Gate is forced to reconstruct you to extract the unnecessary components, finishing the transmutation processes that the sigil doesn't complete."

Winry slowly slouched down on the bed, stretching her legs out over the mattress and sheets, shooting her toes out over the side. Her arms folded tight against her chest as she scrunched up her face as she tried to add alphabetized numbers.

Swallowing, Ed looked down to Winry's questioning expression, "So basically, this transmutation circle uh… kills you by ripping apart your existence and then it fires you in a big, messy ball of 'existence stuff' to the Gate," he cleared his throat, not certain what to make of Winry's slowly evolving expression, "then the Gate puts you back together when you get there," his eye shifted sharply, his words suddenly hesitant, "that's how I've theorized it."

Through a tight brow, Winry rolled the idea through her mind, all the while gnawing on the inside of her right cheek. Startling Ed a little as she finally stirred from her sloppy position, he leaned away as she bounced to her knees, slapped her hands to her legs and threw a very perturbed glare into his path.

"That's sick! I don't want to do that! What kind of sadist is Dante to think this bullshit up?"

"No, Dante's not responsible. She couldn't be," Ed shook his head, drawing his hand up to dismiss her name, "It has to be Envy; he's the only one of them that could know enough about how this world works."

Winry sat back a little, her expression remaining twisted.

"Even with that, it has to be activated from the other side," his left hand rubbed over his face, slowly pulling down to his chin, "but, if anyone at home is standing at the Gate, it will cause feedback to the circle because the doors are open. If you stand on or near the sigil, you should be able feel it," the Elric's hand came down, pushing himself up straighter where he sat, "I swear I've felt _something _out of that thing before, but the people at home would have no way of knowing that you're standing there waiting unless you have a way to send a signal."

Sighing, Winry crossed her legs as she slipped back into the hole next to Ed at his right shoulder space.

Ed gave one final qualification to his statement, "And THAT is also dependant on if they know how to establish a connection with the sigil in the first place… I haven't a clue how you'd actually turn it ON from the other side."

"Are you going to try and use it for anything?" Winry dropped her anxious verbal bomb without hesitation once it was clear to her Ed had finished with his explanations.

"Hell no! I don't know if it even works. If that thing ever activates, and it doesn't go right, you become a lot more than dead…" he gave a short, poignant laugh to the idea, "There's no word in any dictionary I've seen to describe what's happened to you, and I can't imagine how much it'd hurt," his eye twitched at that passing thought, "but, I want to know if there's a reason it's in the Thule hall, if I can take any properties from it and modify it, and if I can trace Envy's path to figure out how he came up with it," reaching over, he took the sheet with the transmutation circle back from Winry, "if he's managed to construct _this _there might be other clues we can uncover to find out where his sources were for this. We can use the information to find a way to send a message home."

Winry gave her consent away with a quiet voice, "Alright…"

The ensuing silence in the room was suffocating and the both of them seemed to quietly suffer from it. For his part, Ed was more than ready to dismiss the thick black cloud he'd created. Suddenly he shifted on the bed, rolling up his left pant leg and pulling off the fake leg, "Yeah, hey, um, I still don't think it's right."

Giving the object a serious eye, she took it from Ed's hands and turned it over, "That's stupid! Your leg is fine. There's nothing wrong with it."

"I'm telling you, it's still not right," Edward plead in protest and shrugged his explanation – he was not the mechanic, "maybe something compressed in the socket when I landed on it?"

"It shouldn't have, but I'll take a look at it later," Winry wrinkled her nose and took an eyeballs glance into the leg socket, "I bet there's just something wrong with you, 'cause I am an artiste. I don't do shoddy work. I swear there is nothing wrong with this leg."

Ed slapped a hand to his face, rolling his eyes beneath it, "Just fix it, please."

* * *

Jean Havoc's roar of laughter was too much to contain in the hotel room everyone had jammed into, so it forced its way out into the hallway as well, where there was far more room to scamper.

"That is excellent, it's even a decent picture," Havoc held up his 'wanted' poster next to his head and, with a saucy grin and devilishly narrowed right eye, he asked the room, "I think Central did a pretty good job with it. Should I frame it?"

The collection of people in the room rolled their eyes, sighed or shifted awkwardly in their seats at the Lieutenant's poor attempt at lightening a heavy situation.

"You could do better," Riza gave a straight-faced, entirely unimpressed stare at her co-worker.

Maria cleared her throat, stifling a laugh for the situation, "I think it would look better on you if it didn't say you were wanted for abducting an under-aged girl."

Dropping the sheet of paper down onto the table, Havoc shook his head, trying to give some kind of positive spin on a frustrating situation, "Thanks ladies, I really appreciate the support."

Entirely unimpressed with the Lieutenant's behaviour, Alphonse kept a stone cold face throughout the quips, "Does anyone even know where Winry is? I mean, she's missing! Hasn't anyone-"

Izumi's hand came down firmly atop his soft head of hair to silence him, while her gaze canvassed the room for an answer, "Well?"

The only one who'd had ties to Central over the last while had been Havoc and all he could do was sigh and shrug, "Sorry kiddo, when I could look into it, all I got was dead ends or road blocks. Nobody gave me the time of day on this one," the liberated officer's attention moved from Alphonse to Mustang, "which is strange on its own. Usually when you try and pass on the buck, people just take it and put it at the bottom of the workload. No one would even take it. It was like they either knew the axe was falling on me or they were told not to take it," with the drift of his hand, Havoc cast his attention to Izumi first, to see the annoyed look in her eye, before giving his attention entirely back to Al, "I honestly don't know."

"Alright," Mustang's arms folded as he shut his eye and began to run a thought, "which jurisdiction oversaw the proceedings against you?"

Havoc rolled the unlit cigarette through his teeth, "The military court had to be involved because I'm an officer, but it was a federal investigation – it was taken from the military's workload and given to the government's law enforcement division."

Lifting his eye open slowly, Mustang unfolded his arms, sliding one hand into his pocket and the other held to a point directed at Izumi and Alphonse, "Dante has had her own seat near the top of this country's political throne since her last mule was removed. But, for at least six months, she has had access to every government department and position because she sits next to the man controlling our 'democracy'," the officer's words came out with mocking disgust at the term, "she has had uninterrupted time to weave herself into everything this country does under the act of a new government. The only department she has lost access to is the military, because her footholds were removed," Mustang carried his words straight to Alphonse and his teacher, "If we are hitting a wall on Winry, and its coming from within the government, then Dante must have something to do with it."

"What'd she do with her!" Alphonse's voice rose again, despite his teacher's hand, "she can't be dead!"

"She isn't dead," answering a scared child's panicked question quickly, Mustang finally withdrew his pointed finger, "Dante likes to leave bodies lying around as a display of her power and control over us – like what remained of Lyra and Tucker once she was done with them. Winry would be a trophy she'd mock us with if she'd had reason to kill her."

"Where is she then?" Havoc asked the question, since ultimately it was going to be him who'd have to fall on the sword if she turned up in any state other than conscious and breathing one.

Mustang couldn't answer that question; his arms just came to refold across his chest as he stared back at his Lieutenant.

"So, what do we do about it?" Hawkeye's voice came up with the question this time and, for this question, she would receive an answer.

"For the moment, there's nothing we can do about Winry's case," came Mustang's absolute response, and he turned his words to his military comrades, "But, there seems to be this larger, growing problem of this corrupt government. Dante lost her connection to the military, so she established the next best thing to rise up with. Since her sphere of influence is not over us, the military is going to have to step up and have it removed."

"Oh, that's rich," Izumi blurted, disgust bleeding from every word, "you are going to use your almighty military _prowess_ and band together whatever you can of this shambled excuse of a military organization, which by the way, the people are quite disgusted with after the reports on Lior and Ishibal were made public – that's how the title of State Alchemist was expunged from our vocabulary," the aura Izumi carried about herself flared up as she approached the military official at the center of the room and threw her tirade at him, "And you're going to bring down the entire establishment that has spent months and months throwing false hope at the average citizen; convincing them that 'this' is better than an authoritarian military state?" she gave a sharp, disdainful laugh in his face, "When you emancipate that lovely delusion right in front of their eyes, and break spirits again, do you understand the social disaster that'll be left behind?"

The military crew within the room seemed to shift silently in place. Throats cleared, postures were adjusted, lips were bitten and all eyes drifted between Mustang and Izumi. Havoc chuckled as he took the cigarette from his mouth and tucked it behind his ear.

"Ms Curtis," Mustang's eye canvassed over her as his body straightened to perfectly square off in front of her, "Nobody deserves to exist in a delusion of false hope. If our people are living in a fantasy, then we do them a greater crime by not telling them, than we do by allowing it to continue. If I chose to go blind to reality, I should turn in my resignation right now, because I would _not _be doing what my service in this army is meant to."

Alphonse glanced from the officer and his teacher as she stared back at him, stone solid in her stiff and unresponsive expression.

Mustang's voice rose like a foreboding shadow swallowing the landscape while continuing to address her, "I want to understand the mess that the Elric brothers, Dante and yourself are mixed up in, I really do, but I've been coming to the realization that I'm constantly five or ten steps behind wherever you are going. I am not your decorative caboose," the unchallengeable tone swelled through his voice, "and Dante seems to think that it's fun not only being five or ten steps ahead of _you, _but also adding all sorts of things externally around everyone to push us back. None of us will ever find ourselves walking in stride with her at this rate," the man scoffed at his own forthcoming thoughts, "that is part of her game: to see how fast she can make these little mice scurry through the maze and catch the cheese she leaves around for them. So, we change the game."

Taking a stiff inhale, Mustang's shoulders rose and he slipped his thumbs into the belt loops of his trousers and continued to stare right back into the eyes of a woman who showed no fear standing right in front of him.

"I can lead."

A singled eyebrow on the most learned alchemist in the room twitched at the suggestion.

"I can lead people to break down the walls of the maze, bring down the game and flush out this parasite leeching off our nation. Then perhaps we will have slowed her down enough for you to catch up in some way. Ideally, it'll give you time and space to find a way to figure out the information you have and reach beyond the Gate, or stop Dante from doing the same. Regardless of what you chose to do with the opportunity, it will be there. That's how I'm playing this game from this point forward."

There was a moment of silence where the alchemy teacher and former state alchemist stood face to face, separated only by the solidarity of principles both of them held steadfast to.

The moment broke when Izumi started to laugh. She threw her arms up and roared with laughter, eventually slapping her hands down over her knees with a thunderous clap. What an asinine dilemma. The worst part, which she hid behind the laughter, was that he was right – disgustingly, horribly right. It _was_ a good idea. Their group, on the whole, was just one easy target stumbling along.

The government couldn't be trusted; individual people could be trusted but not the establishment on a whole. There would be no way to extract what cleanliness remained within the infestation, Dante had a web and knew what every string was to pull plus how and when to do it. Because of that, there was no way they could properly do anything. To get anything at all accomplished, everyone would have to rely on a loyal pack of military hound dogs. They were the only establishment that remained relatively unscathed, standing at the fringes of the web.

Snapping her fingers, the teacher repositioned herself in the unmoving officers path, "I can see how you piss Ed off so much," turning on her heels, Izumi walked away from Mustang, a humourless grin scrawled across her face, "you can't act until we know exactly which one of the two Dante is. You have no rallying cry if you can't identify the corruption properly. Any one of your pawns screws up and every single one of us is expendable."

"I'm well aware," Mustang remained standing at the center of the room, refusing to release the woman's attention from his grip.

Clenching her fists, Izumi gave a begrudging sigh as the strength in her voice backed down, "How much do you want to bet that there have been men before who've learnt about Dante's secrets? What do you think happened to them, if no one has ever really known about what this woman is capable of until now?"

Mustang's sneer came well equipped with a sarcastic reply, knowing he'd won the debate with this wretchedly intelligent and frustratingly headstrong woman standing five steps ahead of him, "Batter up."

* * *

The sun had barely awoken and did not have nearly enough strength to take away the overnight chill just yet – the light was still trapped behind the silhouette of the boat in the harbour. Why ferries had to start running so early in the day was beyond most anyone, but it always seemed to be full of early morning risers; willing or otherwise. As it was every morning, a crowd of travelers and a crowd of well wishers had gathered at the docks to bid adieu to their loved ones, comrades and companions.

Crouching down, Ed got as close to eyelevel with the child as he could, and put his hand on the head of the baby Hyland, "Alright Margaret, I need you to do me one favour in your life!

The little girl's eyes widened, "Okay Uncle Edderd!"

A childish and fun smile for the little girl formed throughout his face, "I need you to grow up and be the prettiest little Hyland there ever was, so your dad ends up staying up all night stressing over what kind of trouble his pretty little girl is getting into, while his hair turns grey and falls out."

"Hey!" Thomas barked as Patricia and Winry both burst out laughing.

"What kind of request is that, Ed?" Winry giggled, a mitten hand covering her mouth.

"It's a request to give Thomas bags under his eyes," Ed nodded sagely, pointing a wary finger at Thomas, "it'll serve you right."

The young father could only respond with a very blank and unimpressed look, "She's only two years old, she doesn't need your bad influence. Unhand my child and be gone with you!"

Patricia crossed her arms over her chest, though one hand continued to flutter around her mouth, "You're so mean to him Edward Elric."

Shrugging, Ed rolled his eyes. He reached his only hand out to pat the giggly little girl on her head before pushing back to his feet. His gaze looked over to his father and the doctor that were coming to join them. Out from beneath him, Margaret gleefully scooted towards the two senior men, followed closely behind by Winry. Ed smirked, laughing to himself as Winry snagged the little girl under her arms and carried her the rest of the way.

"So, my wife tells me you again have no plans on returning to grace us with your presence ever again," Thomas's words were sarcastic but playful, though the man still received a smack on his upper arm from his wife.

Ed continued to hold his smirk, knowing enough to tell when Thomas's words weren't meant to be taken too seriously, "Absolutely none. So, good bye, Thomas Hyland and Patricia Hyland; I hope we never meet again."

It was one of the few times Patricia would ever roll her eyes at someone, and the woman gave a 'tisk' at the toying grin Ed held as she stepped forwards to give him a hug, "You take care, understand? Write to us once in a while."

"Yes ma'am," in the back of his mind, it felt so odd for him to hug her, but strangely welcomed at the same time. Her hugs were _exactly_ the same.

As his wife stepped back, Thomas held up his right hand next to his head, "You still haven't a right arm to shake with, Edward."

Shrugging, Ed offered his left hand with a grin, "I wouldn't give you my right hand, anyways."

"Now, that's just strange," Thomas laughed, accepting the inverted offer.

As the two men's hands met to shake, both found themselves caught off guard by Patricia's laughter, and the woman shuffled her way towards Dr Wilson, Hohenheim and Winry. Both younger men glanced to the ridiculous face-making competition going on between Winry and Margaret that the two older men had begun to laugh at.

"I respectfully request to have my daughter returned to me, Winry Rockbell!" Patti called out.

Pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose in the little girl's face, Winry hollered back, "Can't I keep this one?"

"You may not!"

The shoulders of the 20-something men fell, Ed rolling his eyes while Thomas shook his head. Sighing, Ed went to take back his hand, but had it quickly claimed by Thomas as he gripped Edward's only hand tight.

"You take care of yourself and make sure to take care of Winry as well, understand?" Thomas instructed.

"I already got that lecture from your wife," Ed narrowed an eye, taking as firm of a grip as Thomas gave.

Nodding in agreement, the young father conceded that fact and released Edward's hand, "Yes, and now you're hearing it from me, because this time I'm here to see you off properly."

Reclaiming his hand, Ed could only give a reluctant grin to the statement before turning his attention back to the crowd that had come to gather with them on the docks.

Folding her arms, Winry spun away from Patricia as she gave up Margaret and came to stand next to Ed's vacant right shoulder, "I think I want one," she announced, picking up her suitcase.

"One what?" Ed blinked.

Pointing to the mother and her child, Winry looked up to Ed entirely unimpressed, "A baby, you ditz."

Ed crossed his eyes, lightly wincing at the thought, "I don't think there's a world out there that could handle two of you."

It took a moment of dead silence and dangerous glances before, in the blink of an eye, Winry had swung her oversized suitcase up and snapped it down overtop Edward's head, bringing the man and her collection of personal belongings and equipment crashing down to the ice cold cement in a heap.

Grinning maliciously, Dr. Wilson put a hand down on Hohenheim's shoulder, "Unlike Edward, I do think Winry would make a perfectly sound parent."

"Thank you," she beamed.

"Hey!" Edward's voice rose, snapping to attention, and lurching to his feet - dangerously wielding a pointed finger to the doctor, "I'll have you know that I'm going to make a damned good father someday."

It was the second time in the last minute Edward had wished he'd had the foresight to keep his mouth shut, or at least have said something different, because there was a chorus of 'you are?'s that came from every single person he stood with, each instance spoken with some level of fascination or intrigue. All eyes full of amusement and wonder looked back on him, pinned him to the ground, and demanded an elaboration.

Ed's hand ran over his slowly flushing face, "Uh…huh…"

With a bemused grin eating him up and a teasing jest in his tone, Wilson patted the young man's father on the shoulder as he spoke, "Edward, to be a father, you first need to be aware of how a child is conceived. As you are nearly twenty-two and have been celibate and single since the day we met you, I'm of the opinion that you're quite ignorant to the process. You might want to consult Winry for some clarification."

"Absolutely not happening!" Winry squawked, "He's over eighteen, he can go buy porn."

The dangerous arrow of his left index finger swung out, nearly taking off Winry's nose as Edward barked at the doctor, "You know, I could kill you, throw you off these docks and, before any authority finds your _dead _body, I'll be off drinkin' wine in a French vineyard with some lovely French ladies while the little fishies eat your toes off."

With a hands raised, Hohenheim stepped into the middle of everything to stop this portion of the world from imploding on itself. With the wave of a few hands he directed final hugs and handshakes, though Edward was far more interested in waving a deliberate finger in the doctor's direction as opposed to anything else. The oldest man in the gathering ushered the two young figures he'd escort through Europe onboard the ferry, remaining behind as the two found themselves snagged by the stream of people boarding.

"Your son is an idiot," Charles proclaimed, a defeated grin worn on his face as his hand slapped into Hohenheim's for a final handshake, "To an extent, I can understand why you have to return to Germany, but why in God's name did you not just burn their documents and force them to stay?"

While giving a firm shake of the hand he held, Hohenheim laughed at the suggestion he had seriously considered, "Because Edward would have just hitchhiked his way back to Germany and Winry would have followed. That would have been a bigger nightmare."

Rolling his eyes, Charles Wilson took his hand from his companion and slapped it to the man's shoulder, "You really need to have a serious talk to that boy and set him straight. Talk to him like you're _actually _his father for a change. Your young man is full of potential and alchemy will get him nowhere. Allowing him to wander around aimlessly as a lone soldier without a proper cause doesn't do anyone any good. He'll be lost if he ever has to submit to reality."

"Edward is fine as he is," taking a deep breath of the cool morning air, Hohenheim gave it a few moments to warm in his chest before responding, "you know full well that I have no opinion one way or another on the subject. But, what Edward does, or what he thinks he's doing, gives him hope."

Wilson's brow rose at the seemingly odd statement, "Hope? Might I ask, for what?"

Folding his arms, Hohenheim looked over his shoulder to where Ed and Winry stood, peering down over the ferry's edge to the group standing seaside, "Hope for a better future. He's already had a lot of important things taken from him; too much for someone his age. I don't want to be the one to take that prospect from him. I don't think he'd have much left to him if he lost that."

The doctor stood for a moment, facing his companion, trying to determine the seriousness of the statement. Withdrawing his hand, Charles folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at Ed's father, "That wasn't the answer I was expecting."

The grin returned to Hohenheim's expression, "I know it wasn't. I have to keep you thinking, Charles. There aren't enough challenges in your life if you don't have my son around to completely throw you off."

"Confounded old man," Dr Wilson twisted his face, choosing to laugh away the statement as he smacked Hohenheim in the shoulder.

With his grin unwavering, Hohenheim took his final round of hugs and handshakes from everyone. As the departing well wishes passed from Thomas to Patricia, the old man took a final, selfish moment to look into her eyes one last time before leaving a kiss on the cheeks of a beautiful woman and her baby girl. Stepping away, the old father scaled the ramp leading up to the ferryboat shielding the rising morning sun from everyone's eyes, and allowed the return trip to Germany to commence.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

**

* * *

**

Author's Note:

- Don't mess around with Roy Mustang… he hates taking shit from people.

- How Roze wound up with the Tlingum boys will be explained at a later point.

- The game Dante played is called "Pat-a-cake" (I'm sure you've played it) but Nina/Dante is speaking with a deliberate inflection, so it sounds like Paddy Cake (I spelt it that way for emphasis sake).

- I can't recall if I've mentioned this previously (its been a while), I'm pretty sure I have, but just as a reminder for you and I, Dante does have some Philosopher's Stone in her possession. Not much, but some.

- I just want to make note that Winry has only had time so far to work on dealing with Ed's prosthetic leg, and not his missing arm. Because of the type of, er, upper body 'amputee' (lol that just doesn't sound right) that Ed is, its been too difficult for Winry to do both limbs with the time she's had, and low-quality materials available to her. Ed's previous right arm was unsalvageable.

**Comments (from last chapter):**

Aw hell, I did this years ago, I'll give props to replies. I do love comments, as selfish as that sounds, so thanks everyone.

DrAgOnNeKo567 – Sounds like you had fun reading through it. Glad you enjoyed it!

Keahi Spitfire – Actually, I did think about having Ed just not come back for like two days or something lol. Spiteful bugger.

Miss Woodford – Dr. Wilson just completely underestimates Ed's… well, thickheaded determination. Wilson can't think outside the cultural mold of his world. That either makes him well raised for his time or narrow-minded. Ed is a master at pulling not only Wilson's strings, but his father's strings too. Ed probably caused a few veins in his old man's forehead to snap at the very least. Just imagine how much grief he caused him four or five years ago!

ObsessiveAlchemist – The writing snowball is rolling, so I'm chasing it! Thanks, and I'm glad you're enjoying it :)


	29. The Orchestra's Conductor

**He Who Searches For Himself**

* * *

**Previously**

**Front Side of the Gate (Al):**

The Tlingum brothers come back into play with Roze. Dante begins to mould her pawns to solidify her game. Mustang and Izumi lay out how they intend to proceed with all of the issues plaguing them.

**Back Side of the Gate (Ed):**

Patricia tries to convince Ed not to go back, unsuccessfully. Before saying their goodbyes and boarding the ferry back to the main cotenant to begin the journey home, Ed explains to Winry the functionality of the transmutation circle on the Thule hall floor.

**Foreword: **A time skip has occurred: approx 3 ½ weeks on Ed's side, approx 1 week on Al's.

**

* * *

****Part XXIX - The Orchestra's Conductor – Chapter 80**

The loud crashing boom of a metal slider on the filing cabinet hit carelessly, and Hohenheim flinched at the noise he'd allowed to echo in the empty school halls. Sealing up the finalized semester of schoolwork and papers in the cabinet within the desolate educational building, the old man couldn't help but turn the tight expression he wore into a grin when he heard his companion's bemused reaction to his earlier statement.

"Wait… Edward did what?" Karl Haushofer gawked through a choked laugh.

Hohenheim shook his head and caught the contagious laugh. Turning around, he tossed the desk keys into the air and, snagging them with his other hand, said "He and Winry got home, did laundry, and Edward shrank the majority of his good clothing in the wash."

"With money so tight now-a-days, how does he expect to replace his wardrobe?" with his hands raised, entirely amused by the failure, Karl looked to the ceiling, "And that is why women do laundry! We men just don't have the skill for it."

"Trust me, Winry has been letting him hear about it," Hohenheim's stifled laughter continued through his words, "his pants can be hemmed and his shirts… well, some fared better than others, so it's not that bad there. But he came downstairs completely oblivious to the length of his pants, and Winry and I had to point it out – he wasn't impressed," his eye twitching at a subsequent thought, "as long as he keeps wearing his winter boots, no one will notice while he's out, though I wish he'd shrunk those God-awful slippers he came back from France with."

Waving a hand to clear his thoughts, Professor Haushofer gave an intrigued response, "I'm assuming Edward and Winry didn't venture off into France just for bottles of wine and a pair of fuzzy slippers?"

With a prevalent sound of disgust, Hohenheim narrowed his eyes to his friend, "He won those at some ridiculous carnival," sighing, the father could only shrug his shoulders, "he met some gypsies in Belgium who gave him some crazy ideas that he wanted to look into outside of Paris. He invited Winry along and told her she could see the grand city of Paris; which she saw and wasn't too impressed with. It was too busy for her," he chuckled, though entirely unimpressed with the two of them as he let a displeased tone of voice crawl out, "Winry doesn't know a thing about France or French and Edward's language skills are somewhere between non-existent and poor at best. Apparently, that made things difficult when they _lost_ the gypsies," Hohenheim rolled his eyes to the ceiling, "now they're home and in one piece, thank God."

Karl's hand ran down his face, sputtering as he began to laugh at the situation drafted up in his mind, "Good Lord, that boy."

Raising his hands in defence, Hohenehim's unimpressed expression prevailed over all else, "I honestly don't know sometimes."

Clearing his throat and leaning a shoulder up against the wall of the office, Haushofer's sideways grin wouldn't be undone, "Speaking of Edward and Winry, may I ask you something about Winry?"

Hohenheim's left eyebrow rose curiously, "She's not my child, so I might not know the answer… but yes?"

"Is she involved with Edward at all?" was the curious question.

The question brought both of the father's eyebrows up, "I'm going to take an assumption on what you mean by 'involved' and respond with 'not in a way that I've been made aware of'. Why?"

Haushofer waved away his question with the flick of his wrist, "I was just asking as a concerned citizen, and that's all."

Hohenheim replied with the fakest and most contrived laugh he'd given in weeks, and he continued to hold his inquisitive friend in the crosshairs of his line of sight. His tone bottomed out sharply, "Why?"

"I just told you why," was the sly response, "now forget I asked and hurry up. We have dinner in under an hour."

Wagging a finger, Hohenheim warily returned to his attention to his office, "I don't like it when you put me off like this, Karl."

"I'm not 'putting you off'. Now, lock this nonsense down and we'll get going."

Hohenheim flipped through each key on the heavy ring as he looked for the one to the cabinet. His thoughts suddenly changed to a more pressing concern he'd been withholding, "Say, Karl, did you notice anyone come in or out of my office while I was away?"

The companion wrinkled his face in thought, "I don't believe I noticed anyone down this way. Why?"

Hohenheim shook his head, snagging a sliver key in his fingers, "I just found some things out of place when I got back, and one item was missing altogether. I was just wondering if maybe someone came through my office."

"Are you certain you just didn't forget where you'd left things? You were gone for some time," Haushofer questioned.

Hohenheim gave a deliberate laugh to his words, "No, I'm not senile just yet."

"Who would do something like that?" Karl Haushofer frowned, looking rather disgusted with the idea that someone would rummage through another professor's office, "your office remained untouched the entire time you were gone. I have to pass by it every day and I never saw tampering. I don't know how anyone would have gotten into your things if you had the keys."

"I'm just saying, Karl, that someone went through my office," Hohenheim nose wrinkled when he turned to the man, "things are missing and things are out of place."

With a hand to his shoulder, Haushofer wished for the man to let the issue slide, "Yes, and things are also locked and secured. You have the only set of keys to those cabinets."

With a deep breath and heavy sigh, Hohenheim let the topic slide, "Quite. Very well then."

"Hey, now that's your voice putting me off," Haushofer clenched Hohenheim's shoulder, grabbing on to his dress jacket and pulling him towards the door, "there is no sign of the locks on either the office door, the cabinets, or the desk drawers being picked. You would think that a thief or rabble-rouser of some sort would leave some kind of evidence that would show a break-in – beyond missing papers."

Hohenheim withheld the urge to respond that he already had evidence to the contrary, but figured that discussion of the thick book of theories was too much trouble to engage in, "Perhaps you're right."

With less force this time, Haushofer's hand patted over Hohenheim's shoulder, "Come on now, it' s Christmas season, and Christmas break begins the moment we walk out that door. We don't need to engage this building for another three weeks. It's time to humour the dean with a post-semester engagement, and then spend time with the family."

Hohenheim opened the door to his office, pushing it wide, "This end of term event the dean hosts is so horribly dry. I hope I last the night."

"Just think," Haushofer grinned, "you are not paying the bill. Take it for all it's worth."

Hohenheim reached back to pull his office door shut, firmly ensuring the latch had clicked behind him before inserting the key to lock it for the remainder of 1921. He gave the knob a firm jostle with his left hand to ensure it was secure before following Haushofer down the hall.

* * *

There was a constant and endlessly reverberating ring of gunfire for background noise. It had gotten to the point where the gunfire was nothing more than a sick sound that carried in the air and a resonance that would be heard through the night that completed week one.

It had been one week since two regiments of troops had been dispatched to the east to fight off a swell of insurgence at a location in the remote foothills.

In Major Armstrong's eyes, the confrontation was a pre-arranged engagement that both side had been lead into. For the most part, the fighting remained at a stalemate, though the front line tended to shift by portions of a kilometre over the course of each day – either forwards or backwards. The exchange of unpleasantries seemed to continue on only because that's what they had been told to do, not because there was any meaning to it. Over the course of these endless, sleepless days, the major watched over a troupe of nameless, unmarked soldiers fighting a purposeless battle; dying for no viable cause.

There was the itch that bothered the major again. The one that made him clench his fist and wish he could slam them full force into the earth and, with the rip of an alchemy current, end this ridiculous fight and get these boys home to their families. But, that action was forbidden. It was written into law that the military would no longer engage alchemy as a source of fighting power – it was overwhelmingly accepted after the calculated display of 'atrocities' committed by State Alchemists that had been shown to the public by the establishment that eventually came to power.

The towering officer glanced to the poster tacked to a corkboard in this makeshift field hut. Lt. Havoc's face stared back at him, surrounded by bold letters; most predominantly were the words 'WANTED'. Absurd! It was absolutely absurd, as far as this man in the Armstrong family was concerned. And, although there was no poster for it as of yet, every man knew of the judicial Order to Appear issued for Brigadier General Mustang. Every man knew why and, slowly, men were questioning it.

"Sir?"

Armstrong's tired and frustrated thoughts lifted at the familiar voice calling his name, "Lieutenant?"

Breda stood in the doorway, a cockeyed and bemused expression to him, "I got them thinkin' about it again."

"I'm sorry," the man's deep voice rumbled low in the air, "who's thinking about what?"

With the sweep of his hand, the fabric 'door' swung shut and the lieutenant slipped into the hut, "About what's going on with the Brigadier General. The boys are smart and they're listening. Now, they're thinking about it," Breda sat down in a folding wooden chair within the light of the lantern-lit enclosure, "you're right, you can see it in them when they think about it."

Clasping his hands and resting them down against the top of a sorry excuse for a worktable, Armstrong nodded at the young man's assessment, "I appreciate how you're handling this for everyone, Lieutenant. Everyone does."

"Naw, don't worry about it," Breda gave a laugh to the compliment, "I'm just planting the seeds for you and letting the guys make their own conclusions. It just takes a while to get ideas to grow."

Armstrong smoothed a hand over his chin, "There _is_ an Armstrong family technique passed down through the generations that's said to aid the acceleration of thoughts in the mind. Typically, it's used for school, but perhaps that can be applied to expedite the process."

Grinning nervously, Breda tried to wave away the Major's 'helpful' suggestion, "No sir, I think that might be a bit extreme. You'll want them to see on their own how they're using Havoc and setting up Mustang for the fall, and come to basically the same conclusion."

"Which is how it has been going so far, correct?" the major asked.

Breda nodded, "Everyone's kinda talking under their breath, sharing their thoughts, asking who's heard what. I didn't have to spread the suggestions to everyone, just the right people."

"Very sly, Lieutenant," Armstrong tipped his hand to the young man.

"Thank you, Sir," he laughed a bit, "I learnt from a girlfriend in high school about spreading gossip."

Sighing, the lumbering major took a glance to the waving light of the lantern, "These men will only be able to take so much before they see through the futility of why we're out here. Once they're able to see that, the cards will fall in the Brigadier General's favour."

The lieutenant's voice lowered to a hush, "Mustang wants to speak with them eventually, doesn't he?"

"He does, yes," Armstrong brought his deep voice to a similar key, "he thinks that's important. But it won't be much until we can rendezvous at Central."

Breda perked with curiousity, "What's he going to say?"

"The facts, most likely. The truth as best he can," Armstrong nodded, folding his arms.

"Will he tell them what he's told us about Dante?"

"That depends on how much of the Dante story is believable by that point. If you were approached by anyone that you did not know as well as we know Mustang, would you have believed him?" the major watched his conversation partner look to the corner in thought, "what is believable is that no one is leading us properly anymore. Men who sign up for the military sign up with the expectation of being lead responsibly. There is a powerful, driving force behind a man in uniform – not only the force in your soul, but the force that guides and moulds that soul to evolve; to become more," the huge man spoke with a firm and powerful jaw, "that's responsibility to guide and shape the world is part of what a leader does, and trust me when I say that the Armstrong family knows this power well. But what's going on here? This is not leading. This is nothing more than a distraction to thin out the power. The further apart the ranks of the military are placed in this country, the weaker the military become as a whole."

"You know," the lower officer spoke carefully, "you _can_ end this stupid stalemate we're stuck in."

"I know I can," came the solemn reply.

"Will you?"

Armstrong looked up, his ears catching a change in the normally consistent ring of gunfire. With his hands firm on the table, he pushed to his feet, nearly sending his head through the canvas ceiling, "When I have the earnest support of these men around me and Brigadier General Mustang tells me I can. I have to show my respect for his judgement if I expect anyone else to."

Standing as well, Breda closed the folding chair and tucked it away at the corner of the tent, "The men are going to get restless fighting this battle. It's not winnable," his eyes turned over his shoulder to the towering superior officer, "they'll eventually see that."

"I know," a grin broke through the steadfast Armstrong, "and when they find that point within themselves that this order we are withstanding is not an order worth fulfilling, they'll be shown a leader and given orders they can follow," again Armstrong's attention was diverted by a change in flow from the world outside of this tent, "I just hope that point comes sooner rather than later."

* * *

At five thirty in the afternoon, dinner is usually being cooked, the kids are being told to do their homework, or general chaos is ensuing for the hours that exist between 'after work' and 'dinner' served promptly at six. But, none of those sounds existed in Hohenheim's German household. The only interruption was the sound of the fireplace crackling in the back wall of the home, and it was running low.

Ed and Winry had passed out on the couch hours ago – each claiming an opposite arm of the couch to curl up in. Ed's forehead was shoved into the space where the back plush cushions met the soft couch arm, the seat cushion beneath him had slipped out a little over time as he'd slouched further down and the collar of his partially buttoned dress shirt had slid up to his ears. His feet were on the coffee table, something his father vehemently disapproved of, but the old man wasn't home, so who would know? Besides which, Ed had on the most gaudy looking pair of orange, green, brown and purple-spotted fuzzy slippers he'd ever seen. He didn't think that people could make anything that ugly until he saw them, and they amused him something fierce – perhaps only because his father hated them _so _much.

Winry wasn't quite so decorated, though she was just as dead to the world as Ed was. Her hair was wrapped atop her head in a white towel – still damp from the shower she'd taken at noon. She'd wrapped herself up tight in a robe, made hot chocolate and sat down in the corner of the couch to blissfully empty her head and vegetate. At some point she'd stuffed her feet in between the seat cushions for support as she snuggled up with the arm of the couch and buried herself in the corner long before Ed had sat down. Only a third of her drink had been tasted, the rest had gone cold.

Neither one of them heard the knock at the door. Or the second one. Or the third.

Every house had a bell, but it always seemed rude to use it. However, the party knocking at the door chose to use the bell and Ed cracked an eye open.

"Son of a bitch," he murmured. With only one eye open, he slid to the floor from the couch, dumping his feet to the floor. He gave a wary look to the opened and mostly finished bottle of red French wine, which was adorned with a label he couldn't exactly read properly, that had been forgotten on the centre table. Edward didn't have a clue about the time of day and he didn't particularly care. Couldn't people just leave him to sleep in peace? Barely awake, he dragged himself to the front door, half heartedly straightening his shirt as he walked, and removing the hair tie from his mangled head of hair. Looking like a dishevelled mess, Ed threw the door open, completely disinterested in the December chill in the air.

"What?" he demanded.

Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess stared back at him rather dumbstruck.

"What do you two want?" he asked through half opened eyes.

With a raised brow, Hess spoke first, "… Nice slippers, Edward."

Ed glanced down to his multi-coloured footwear, "Thanks."

"You should get your pants altered," Hess pulled his lower lip through his teeth, trying not to show a laugh, "your ankles are showing."

Still staring at his feet, Ed rolled his good ankle a little, eyeballing his white-socked foot that was stuffed into the fuzzy slippers, "Whatever."

The two men shared a number of uncertain glances before Albrecht finally spoke, "Um, well I hope your day is going well. Did you have a good trip to England?"

Ed smacked his lips, trying to remove the taste of sleep from his mouth, "You two stooges came all the way out to the house and woke me up _just_ to ask how the trip was?"

"Something like that…" Albrecht replied cautiously, "uh, I heard you went to France after you'd been to England. How was that?"

"It was French," Ed replied flatly.

"Yes, of course," the young Haushofer gave a nervous glance to his companion.

The heavy weighted eyelids Ed fought against held up just high enough so that he could scan the two of them: the young Haushofer looked as sheepish as ever, and Hess came off like he was trying too hard to look average.

"Look, I have a spitting headache," Ed's hand came up into his fallen hair, "don't you two have better things to do?"

"Actually, if it's possible Edward, can I speak with Winry?" Albrecht gave the reason for their arrival, "is she around?"

Edward's face suddenly clouded over with suspicion, abruptly more awake than he was before, "Why?"

Like a young pup requesting the ball to be tossed, Albrecht looked to Edward and asked again, "If I could Edward, is Winry around?"

"She's sleeping on the couch in her robe, and probably isn't up for talking with you in your semi-coherent textbook English," Ed took a moment to glance over his shoulder to see if she'd stirred or not before readdressing the group with only his suspicious eyes, "Again… why?"

Albrecht took a glance to Hess before shrugging, "I had a question for her, that's all. Perhaps I'll stop by later after dinner! Go… do something about your headache. Sorry we bothered you."

Edward's face twisted into all sorts of pretzels, not awake enough to draw a conclusion to what was going, "Alright…"

With that, the duo backed away, each giving him some sort of 'good evening' well wish that Edward could have cared less about. He remained standing at the open door a few moments after the duo had vanished from sight. His eyes slowly falling shut, though squinting as his tired mind tried to connect the dots. Ed finally gave up on that, stepped back, and shut the door. Returning to the living room, Ed dragged his feet along the floor and back to the couch. Stopping before he sat down in his corner again, Ed's slit of vision slipped to Winry, now fully occupying the couch that she'd stretched out along.

"Move!" Ed barked.

"You left, couch is sacrificed to me," her words were lazy and muffled, caught up in the fabric of her robe and arm of the couch her head was nuzzled into.

Rolling his eyes, too exhausted to either be annoyed or unimpressed, he sat down on her feet. Winry squeaked and withdrew her legs, giving him a sharp kick to his right side with her bare foot in retaliation.

"Who was at the door?" Winry sat up a bit, pulling her legs under herself and adjusting the robe.

"Nobody important," Ed mumbled while trying to re-establish the strangely awkward, yet perfectly comfortable, position he'd been in before having to get up. He kicked his feet up onto the table again and slouched down. From the corner of his eye, he caught a disgusted look cutting through Winry's face.

"What?"

She gave him a pointedly revolted look, "You look like you crawled out of a barn. Go take a shower or something."

Ed rolled his eyes before closing them, grumbling something that didn't sound either English or German, but ultimately resulted in him completely ignoring the suggestion and attempting to go back to the afternoon nap.

* * *

Izumi's fingers rattled off the table top in the room she and Alphonse sat in. She played her rhythm as though she'd once been some masterful, one-handed piano player. The tune she played was aggressive, frustrated and angry; it came with no lyrics. Across from her, Alphonse sat, watching his teacher's free hand scratch through her scalp.

"Sensei…?" Al prodded, quite concerned with how dark his teacher's face grew.

"Something about that just doesn't translate right," both of the woman's hands became fists, and came crashing to the table where they exploded open again, "the part where it's a baby that communicates with the Gate, okay, I buy that. An infant's connection to the world around it is weak, practically non-existent if it's young enough – far easier to get to the Gate that way. But the need for the baby to be a hermaphrodite just seems… strange."

Straightening up in his seat, Al stretched his arms out over the round table the pair occupied as Izumi continued her rant.

"The factors for a situation this complex for alchemy purposes should be fundamentally unadulterated. It doesn't make sense that you'd use such a bastardized ingredient like a ruined infant. The baby is called 'a hermaphrodite' but the qualification for that is that the baby contains properties of both sides of the Gate. What kind of properties? Is it the biological properties of the hermaphrodite child that sets Diana apart, or something else? It's not definitively specific, because the term 'properties' isn't qualified."

If anyone could successfully kill someone by glaring bullets, it would be Izumi, and she defaced the table with intangible shots from her eyes.

At least this table was theirs. It was theirs, it was private, and it contained some type of relative security. Through a tight connection Mustang had, the second floor of a two-storey hotel, tucked away at the disinterested edge of Central City, had become their own. Inside, along with the military crew setting up their operations, Izumi and Alphonse had set up for work. The sanctuary was nice, but the longer they seemed to be there, the less sense the mountain of information the teacher had gathered seemed to make. Which either meant that she didn't have all of the information, or the information was not entirely correct. She was generally leaning towards a huge gap of information, most likely deliberately withheld by Dante to get them scrambling again, but there were some disturbingly odd references going on that she wasn't entirely sure could be explained in the first place.

"You place an infant at the Gate, with a poor connection between its mind, body and soul, fused with properties from both sides of the Gate, and both worlds become available," she looked at some of their written material with gross disgust, "So, how do you steal an infant from the other side, bring it to this side, and then perform a human transmutation on it to fuse it with another infant… when the purpose of the child is to get to the other side of the Gate, because you don't have access?" she rolled her eyes to Alphonse, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"If the 'Diana' in the Prime Minister's home is the Diana in the reference, then what's Dante done to get a child from beyond the Gate to fuse with it?" Al threw some more fuel to the verbal puzzle.

Izumi's frown worsened, "She must be using a substitute of some kind… since she doesn't seem to actually have gotten beyond the Gate yet," the teacher sat back in her seat, throwing an arm over the back of the chair, "the theory doesn't mention anywhere if it's important if it needs to be a boy or a girl taken from beyond the Gate. I'd think that something this complex… it would be specified which side of the Gate is equated to which gender, since everything else is full of detail."

Folding his arms, Alphonse slouched down in the seat he occupied across from his teacher, "Dante did get Brigitte from beyond the Gate."

Izumi's face fell, "Yeah, and she doesn't seem to work in with any of this. It's like she was something else entirely that came from beyond the Gate," a scowl suddenly ripped into the teacher's face, "why the hell wouldn't Dante be fighting tooth and nail to get Brigitte back? She's the first concrete thing that's ever come through the Gate in _any _of our lifetimes."

"I don't think Dante was ever interested in Brigitte. Both Nina and Aisa didn't really fawn over her, more like they poked her with a stick to see what she'd do. I don't think Brigitte was what they wanted," Al raised an eyebrow at his own statement, passively wondering where she was at the moment – Lieutenant Ross was given the task of guardian for her again, "and Dante couldn't have found the picture of my brother in her bag, or she would have taken it."

"Interesting…" Izumi's voice trailed with a glowing thought that began to grow bright at the back of her mind, "she doesn't know for certain that Ed is even beyond the Gate. She's running on assumptions from the theory that Ed is alive and well, but we have the proof that those assumptions are fact."

Al's face twisted up with concern, "There's a lot of 'assuming' going on with this theory."

Izumi expelled a harsh sigh, "You know what's terrifying Alphonse, she might want to believe the things in that theory so badly that in her mind it's already true. After four or five hundred years thinking about something, you're bound to start losing judgement on it – it's just so familiar to you, it feels like fact. That makes her more dangerous than we could possibly imagine."

Alphonse slumped down in his chair until his eyes were level with the table top. He projected his gaze into the collection of books and paperwork the pair had amassed, and looked at it as though he could burn it up with his eyes.

"Alphonse…" Izumi's tone was cautious and questioning.

"I just wanted to find my brother," he mumbled, "I wanted to find my brother and now there's this crazy lady trying to get to the same place I want to get to. If she gets there first, or if I manage to do it and she finds out, we're all in trouble… and my brother won't matter anymore."

"Ed always has, and always will, matter, Alphonse Elric," with a grin, Izumi shook her head, "this 'crazy lady' would have come all the way out to Rizembool for us if we hadn't stopped by first, it was just a matter of time," the teacher stood up and walked around the table, "and it's not an 'I' thing, it's a 'we' thing. Accessing the Gate is not just your responsibility."

Alphonse cranked out a deliberately childish pout, holding his sensei in his eyes as she sat down next to him, "I know, I know. I'm just frustrated, that's all. This is a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I barely know who Dante is and she has it out for me and everyone else. All I want to do is get my brother back."

"Well," Izumi pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. Lacing her fingers together and putting her elbows down on the table, the teacher put her chin down atop her hands and spoke straight ahead to her now vacant seat, "Up until about a year ago, I'd _thought_ I'd known who she was, then I found out I didn't know that woman at all. I'd say I'd gone so far as to have idealized her at one point, before we fell out of our relationship. Now, none of us knows which one she is. So, you're not entirely lagging as far behind as you think."

"Alright," the youngest Elric pulled out a grin for his teacher's words, "pick-me-up time is over. I'm done sulking; you can stop with the 'cheer up Alphonse' thing. We have things to figure out."

With a mocking beam across her face, the teacher's hand came down into the fluffy mat of hair on the young man's head and roughly messed it up as she stood up again, "That's a good boy."

Al rolled his eyes, pushing away his teacher's hand and resetting his mangled hair, "I'm not a puppy, Sensei!"

Izumi hadn't finished reseating herself before a knock came to the door. Both occupants of the room looked over as Maria Ross pushed open the wooden door with a creak, "Sorry guys, are we interrupting?"

"Hi Brigitte," Al beamed, looking at who accompanied the lieutenant, and received a light wave in response.

"I think someone's bored," Maria patted her hand down on Brigitte's shoulder, deliberately addressing Izumi, "I'm wondering how tied up Al is, and if he wants to give a shot at entertaining her for the afternoon."

"Yes, I can!" his chirp was suddenly silenced by the blank expression his teacher buried him beneath, "… if it's alright for me to go?"

After pausing the room, Izumi eventually gave a careless shrug of her shoulders as she looked harmlessly over to Ms. Ross, "Sure, I'm sure his head needs something else to chew on for a while. He might explode if we keep on this much longer."

"Thank you!" Al chirped, coming out of his seat and making his way over to Brigitte. He grinned, took her by the hand and tugged her out of the room behind Maria.

The officer watched the two children disappear into the second floor of the hotel before turning her growing curiosity back to Izumi, "How's it going?"

Izumi scoffed at the question. She rolled her eyes and dropped a heavy, worn-out look over the lieutenant's head that didn't require any verbal response from the teacher beyond the 'ugh' she gave.

* * *

With a few final words from Hess, and the clap of his hands at the centre of the Thule Hall, the congregation was joyfully told to break for the Christmas holiday weekend. The receptions held before and after Christmas were always a little lighter than any other. Round table discussions were held about holiday plans, family members, gift ideas and which relative would be the most dreaded to show up. Hohenheim always took the moment to share with everyone how Karl Haushofer paled at the idea of his mother-in-law and her family showing up to ruin the season. The statement always drew a laugh because the senior Haushofer never denied the fact that he couldn't wait for the crotchety old woman to pass on. This year, as he did the prior year, he gave a warning to his son that if the words spoken in this hall were ever mentioned to his mother, the boy would find himself drowned at the bottom of the North Sea.

The only sang to the evening, as far as Hohenheim was concerned, was the late arrival of Adolf Hitler and the delighted introduction Hess gave him. Never missing an opportunity, the devilish man always took these moments to preach his position to all the ears he could gather, and everyone seemed to eat him up. Strangely enough, anytime he arrived, the members would always be instructed to never make mention of his presence in the hall, _ever_.

Even after the evening dismissal, the gathering lingered for quite some time, all of them amused and delighted by the cake someone's wife had prepared for the meeting. Christmas cake couldn't be had without drinks to wash it down, so a number of the men remained long after they normally would have.

"Professor Hohenheim!" a young man's voice called out.

In the middle of a rowdy conversation with any ear that would entertain his banter, the professor's attention was diverted.

Coming up to his side, the young Albrecht Haushofer grinned ear to ear with a juvenile and foolish smile, "I have to thank you, Sir."

The sudden statement completely confused Hohenheim, "I'm sorry son, what am I being thanked for?"

"For not objecting," his sheepish grin continued to glow.

Still confused, Hohenheim's eyes canvassed all four corners of his visual plane in thought before a few passing ideas seemed to connect, "Oh that!" he started to laugh, "Edward mumbled something to me in passing that you showed up after dinner last night and asked Winry to a Christmas Party?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I did," quite proud of himself for the accomplishment, the young man had no intention of denying that, "so thank you for not objecting. I'm glad to say all the English classes my father forced on me actually seemed beneficial for a change."

Grinning, Hohenheim patted the young man on the shoulder, "I am not that girl's father, so I don't have a veto in her life. So, if she's confident enough in herself to go out with you for a party, I don't see why the girl can't go out a bit," playfully, Hohenheim's expression darkened and his voice took on a deep undertone, "but let me warn you, if Winry comes home in any less of a condition than she left in, it won't be me you'll be dealing with."

"Yes, I've already been warned," Albrecht rolled his eyes, his words sticking with disgust, "I'm to be stripped naked and strung upside down by my ankles in a desert. I will have my fingers cut off so I may I slowly bleed to death or be picked apart by scavengers as I boil in the sun."

Hohenheim cleared his throat, quickly stripping the perturbed reaction from his eyes, "I see."

A voice from behind the group rose up, and the pair's attention fell to Adolf as he walked up, arms folded and brow raised, to join the group, "I find that an admirable quality of your son, Professor Hohenheim, that he's so conscientious of the foreign girl."

Hohenheim's expression remained stagnant, "Welcome to the man of the hour."

"Man of the month," Albrecht corrected, "Professor, you missed all the fun while you were off being a continental traveler."

"If I recall, Professor Hohenheim," the most powerful man in the room drew up his voice, "I did request you attend the election and you were unfortunately not in town for my ascension," his tone fell a little, almost toying and whimsical, "I haven't had a chance to tell you how disappointed I am that circumstances have kept you at a distance. You constantly seem out of reach."

Sighing, Hohenheim kept his composure calm and collected amidst the congregation, "Yes, Adolf, and I have told you, I do not involve myself in politics any longer. I teach young minds ways to expand, and that's all I'm interested in."

"Ah yes, and at that, I think we should have a discussion, Professor," Adolf's hand rose to Hohenheim's shoulder and the man turned his attention to the young Haushofer, "If you'll excuse us, Albrecht."

At Adolf's prompting, both he and Hohenheim turned over opposite shoulders and stepped away from the younger Haushofer without objection.

With the only exchange between them for a few moments being the echo of the soles of their shoes on the cement floor, Adolf's cold words rose up from between carefully placed footsteps, "I was under the impression that your interest in young minds was never for procurement, rather quite the opposite."

"What do you want?" Hohenheim's low voice was harsh and forthright.

Adolf responded, sounding bored and aloof, "Why did you return to Germany?"

Hohenheim's gaze narrowed, eyeballing the man of smaller stature, "Because _someone_ tempted my son with a taste that I had no hope of washing from his mouth."

"Did you try using soap? Bleach perhaps?" he laughed at his own statement. A hint of curiosity and intrigue tingled in Hitler's voice, "I do believe, before his right arm was lost again, you'd sent your son searching for something particular," the walking pace slowed the further they moved from the general crowd, "a bottle of wine, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and you know as well as I do, that brand of wine doesn't exist. Isn't it odd that you would know that Trisha and I drank a brand wine that doesn't exist anywhere in Europe?" stopping, Hohenheim's arms pulled up and folded across his chest, "do you enjoy having that voice in your head telling you odd things, Adolf?"

Snorting, the man's grew a sneer into his face, "I haven't any voices in my head, Professor."

Chuckling and struggling to hide his distain in the darkness of the far reaches of the hall, Hohenheim cast his gaze over the man who strove to be king, "Indeed, you don't. You have a cancerous tumour growing in your mind, feeding you ideas, passing on thoughts in your sleep, while its voice remains dormant. It's smart: if it directly conversed with you, like it had with Reinert, you'd probably outcast it for fear of lunacy."

The frozen gazes the men held each other in were complimented by the winter chill that was so hard to chase from this occult gathering place.

Adolf shifted his posture, flattening his tone to near disregard, and diverting attention to the previous topic, "Yes, your wife and two children that you abandoned, like you abandoned the prior family you had. I've learnt a lot of things in the last while, Hohenheim – about things, places, and people," his attention lifted, sounding somewhat fascinated by his own words while his eyes sliced into the dwindling crowd mingling in the hall, "I've learnt about man and how man's will can be tempered, channelled and directed; how they are much like sheep. I have been shown that I have the potential to be prolific, and how I have a way with not only my actions, but my voice as well, to lead. I have been made aware of so much potential within myself and I have never before felt so empowered," with a fierce change in his tone, Adolf returned to addressing the ancient man before him, "I've also learnt a lot about you. Every day that passes by, you become more transparent to me and I can feel the hate bred from an unnamed envy grip my soul. I've come to despise you and everything around you for no reasons I could have ever come to know about on my own. Logically, I should find your motives and idiosyncrasies you do in this Germany commendable, but I do not. Right down to the most insignificant aspect of my being, I despise you."

His expression unchanged, Hohenheim responded promptly to the nerve-rattling statement, "If logic is telling you that something is wrong, perhaps you should listen to what you know in your heart is right."

The man laughed, much louder than he'd planned, giving the odd indication to the interested persons watching the engagement that the conversation was not as dark as it appeared, "Oh no, Hohenheim, I am not done using this tapped resource."

The old man snorted, accepting how futile this conversation would be, "It's using you, Adolf. Don't kid yourself on that fact."

"I can expel it at any point," the man's crass voice became low, but intensely shrill as it tore strips through the darkening corner, "it is here with me because I allow it to be!"

Hohenheim's voice never rose as he spoke with clear, melancholy truth to his words, "That's true; you can expel that sin if you chose, but envy for the world is a poison that will destroy you over time."

"Something you are acutely aware of," the tactless voice bit back, irritated by Hohenheim's disinterest in a verbal sparring match, "I certainly hope Winry enjoys the Christmas party I'm hosting tomorrow night."

There was poignant a moment of silence at Hohenheim's sudden recognition of what had just been said. His eyes shot towards the figure already walking away from him, drilling through the back of the man's skull who did not bother to look back at him, "Your _what_?"

Adolf raised a dismissive hand as he stepped back in to join the social gathering, "Have a Merry Christmas, Professor."

* * *

A debate was raging on in everyone's absence. All the adults had other things to do this evening and none of those things involved either Alphonse or Brigitte. So, the two children engaged in a fierce, mostly silent, debate. Which number was more important for this childish engagement: seven or eight? Alphonse narrowed an eye at his own questioning thought.

"Can I have six?" Brigitte asked.

Alphonse raised a finger to correct her, "Do you have a six."

Begrudgingly, the girl repeated, "Do you have a six?"

"No, go fish," Al grinned.

"_Stupid boy!"_ souring her face to an extreme, Brigitte threw a stray card at him, "_making me repeat myself when I didn't have to. I don't care if my English is bad. I don't even like English!_"

"Sorry," completely understanding the reason behind the card being thrown, Alphonse laughed at her reaction before straightening himself out with the serious inquisition of his playing hand resuming, "… Do you have an eight?"

Brigitte's grin beamed with hints of deception, and she was delighted to say: "No, go fish."

Al narrowed an eye at her, the pair sitting at the center of the king sized bed in the bedroom, "Are you lying?"

She pursed her lips, slitting her eyes as she shuffled her focus between Alphonse and her cards, "_I think you think I'm lying…_" her eyes shifted hastily from left to right, trying to decide how to proceed. The moment her gaze snuck into the right corner, the girl's head swung and her eyes flew open wide at what she saw in the hotel room window. Dropping her cards, Brigitte began to slide herself to the other end of the bed.

Leaning in to look at the cards she'd dropped, Al picked up one she'd discarded, "You lied! You DO have an eight!"

Brigitte slapped her left hand down over the bed repeatedly as she spoke, "Al! Al! Al!" she continued with his name until he looked to her. The moment she had his attention, her finger swung to the window and her voice chirped, "What!"

Turning, Alphonse began to sit up straighter, his shoulders stiffening as he looked into the face staring in from their second floor window, "… W-wrath?"

The young homunculus clung to the window's edge, his wide eyes looking into the room wondrously, "Hi, can I play?"

"No," Al answered abruptly, sweeping the cards into a pile at the centre of the bed, "What are you doing here?"

Pulling himself into the room, the golem's rusted AutoMail clattered through the window's frame as he fell in and landed square on his backside. Entirely unfazed by his actions, Wrath's fascinated grin flew wide, as did his eyes, when he raised his head in awe at the hotel room, "Wow, nice room. Who sleeps in here! You two or other people?"

Brigitte slid herself up onto her knees, sitting up taller so she could see the thing sitting on the floor. She would have assumed something with a metal arm and metal leg like that would frighten someone, but Alphonse didn't seem as frightened by this as she was, and she couldn't figure out why. It was strangely reassuring.

"Whaaaat?" she drew out, probably the most accurate explanation for her confusion at the moment.

Wrath giggled at her voice, "Your friend is funny!" pushing to his feet, he scampered to the other side of the bed, "I know a lot of people Al knows, but I don't know you!" he grinned for her, and gave an introduction, "My name is Wrath, what's your name?"

Brigitte beamed, having heard enough versions of Wrath's statement, she'd known almost exactly what had been said, "My name is Brigitte!"

Al paled, running a hand through his hair at the cordial introduction going on between the girl from beyond the Gate and the homunculus, "Uh, Wrath, what are you doing here?"

"I came here to see you!" Wrath climbed onto the bed, much to Al's disapproval, "Dante wants me to talk to you about things, but I'm hungry. Do you have food?"

"Dante what!" Alphonse's voice cracked as his eyes widened. Swiftly, he reached out to grab Brigitte's curious hand as she tried to reach out and poke the AutoMail at Wrath's shoulder – he pulled her away. His words were suddenly rushed and came out in a flurry, "tell me what Dante wants and I'll feed you anything I can find."

"Deal!" Sitting up and crossing his legs to sit perfect and proper, the young creature with a black mop of hair grinned with delight at the trade off, "Dante wants you to come and talk to her. Do you remember where the underground city is? You woke up there."

Swallowing hard, Al returned Brigitte's hand and placed it in her lap, sliding up beside her on the bed, separated from the homunculus by a deck of 52 cards, "I remember, a little. Why does she want to talk to me?"

The homunculus spat out information like the words had as little meaning to Alphonse as they did to him, "She wants to talk to you about finding your brother and things beyond the Gate. She said she misses having you around to talk to."

Alphonse moved to give a reply, but stopped himself. Something about how Wrath's statement had come out flared up within his minds eye. He'd never really talked with Aisa…

"Wrath," his words were far more eager than he'd ever expected the question would be, "is Dante shorter than me?"

Wrath narrowed a single eye in thought as he sized up the youngest Elric before him, "Yeah, a lot shorter. Longer hair too," he wound up a chunk of his messed up hair around his index fingers and batted his eyes as best he could, "she does them in braids sometimes, so people thinks she's cuter."

Uncertain if he was supposed to gawk in terror or delight, Al's eventual grin tried to swallow his face and his eyes would have been wider if his cheeks hadn't gotten in the way, "Wrath, I could kiss you!"

The creature made an alternate request, "I'd prefer red stones, please."

Slipping from the far side of the bed to the floor, Alphonse grabbed Brigitte by the hand again and pulled her towards the bedroom door with him, "You stay here and I'll get you an entire buffet!"

The boy's eyes widened with fascination at the prospect of a line-up of food.

Wagging a finger at the homunculus, Alphonse reached for the door handle with his free hand, "I need to get money from Sensei, so I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Oh!" the golem child's eyes suddenly widened, realizing something important he'd forgotten, "it's a secret!"

"What's a secret?" the tips of Al's fingers slipped from the handle as he turned back.

"Dante says that these things are a secret and the adults can't know," wiggling himself off the bed, the young creature twisted his face at the notion, but still dropping his words casually, in a matter-of-fact way, "so if you tell anyone, and if you don't come to visit, you'll ruin the secret, and as punishment Winry will die."

"WHAT!" Alphonse's hand lost the door entirely and his other hand lost Brigitte's grasp, "Dante really does have Winry!"

With a flash of delight, the homunculus's grin flew wide, "AH! You're upset! I get red stones now!"

Wrath bolted from his spot towards the window, Alphonse scrambling after him. Colliding with the creature's legs, Al screamed at him to stop as he wrapped his arms around Wrath's knees. The homunculus took the moment to squeal, joyfully and playfully, as though the entire escapade were only a game. With the might of Winry's mechanical talent, he gave Alphonse a swift kick to the face with the foot of his AutoMail leg. Thrust backwards, the young Elric lost his grip and fell against the side of the bed before hitting the floor. Dazed only for a moment, Al scrambled to his feet, nearly falling out the window as he threw himself half way into the frame, resting on his arms as he frantically looked out, but Wrath was gone.

"No…" Al looked around in every direction he could bend, but continued to see nothing. With a few deep breaths, he finally let go of the window and fell back inside, sliding down the wall beneath the window until he sat on the floor, "No… this just can't…" he mumbled to himself, looking over to Brigitte who continued to stand confused and frozen up next to the frame of the room door. His wide eyes looked at the displaced girl, who was now far more frightened about the events within the room than she had been at any point previously.

Alphonse's hands swept up and ran over his face for a moment before they jetted sharply up into his hair, clenching tightly as his jaw stiffened and arms tensed, "She just can't do that!"

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

- Reading and reviewing is loved, appreciated, and makes for happy authors :)

- No, I have no plans to cover the expedition to France LOL. Your imagination is free to do whatever you want with it!

- Poor Al. Just can't get ahead.

- I had some fun doodling up a few artworks for this chapter (I have an icon somewhere that screams 'someone has too much time on their hands' – it's aptly appropriate). I've also posted art from prior chapters as well. They're all available in my DeviantArt account. My handle is, always, yuukihikari :)

**Comments:**

ObsessiveAlchemist – I really enjoy writing Hohenheim :) he's a strong character. And the only kind of father I can picture Ed as (right now, anyways) is bumbling, confused one LOL. Thank you!

Miss Woodford – Winry kinda had short notice for what she was doing, so she didn't have time to go all-out AutoMail style. She kinda ended up giving him something akin to the "spare" she had back home (the spare leg Ed got for a bit in the series when they were back in Rizembool was entirely wooden). Winry took a little from column A, a little from column B, a lot of improvisation, and made something for Ed to stand on :).

S J Smith – I'm glad you enjoyed your read through!


	30. The Dual Tandem

**He Who Searches for Himself**

* * *

**Previously**

**Front Side of the Gate (Al):**

Mustang is attempting a subtle rally of the troops for his cause in preparation for confrontation. While Izumi and Alphonse try and solve the riddle of the Gate, Wrath shows up and extends a private invite for Al to meet Dante.

**Back Side of the Gate (Ed):**

Hohenheim fishes for information on who snuck into his office, while Albrecht Haushofer gets up the courage to ask Winry out to a Christmas party. Hohenheim re-encounters Adolf Hitler and establishes the identity of Envy.

**Chapter foreword: **I have a few dual-language sections with both English and German. For those sections, German dialogue will be done in _italics_ and English will remain regular font. Enjoy!

* * *

**Part XXX – The Dual Tandem – Chapter 81**

* * *

"_Pretty, isn't she_?" Tilly beamed and presented Winry to the room. Circling around her living and breathing dress-up doll, the German woman gushed, "_You men must have fed her well in England, I think she's rounding out nicely like a girl her age ought to; makes it hard to find something that fits her nicely. No one's stitching anything proper for girls now-a-days. For some reason, clothiers are under the impression that we're actually straight as bean stalks._"

Winry shifted awkwardly in place, adjusting the black, wide-collar, long-sleeved dress at the hip. She shot an uncomfortable look to Edward on the floor; his eye twitched as he put his chin and disapproving gaze down on the coffee table.

"_God forbid you ever have any daughters_," Hermann tipped his water glass in approval of Winry, "_she's lovely_."

Readjusting what Winry had just tampered with, and giving the girl's wound up hair a pat for good measure, Tilly ushered her prized creation over to the sofa and sat her down. The German woman continued to glow as she picked at the little flowered decorations she'd woven into Winry's hair and sat on the cushion next to her, "_Christmas parties are always fun, everyone's dressed up so nicely! Who's she going with again_?"

"_Albrecht Haushofer_," Ed replied flatly.

Hermann laughed at the dead response, "_Ah! The little troll you don't like_," jovially, he poked the taciturn Elric next to him, "_And how come you aren't taking Winry? Are you still getting over something?_"

"_Huh? 'Still'_?" Ed's brow rose at the question, losing the monotone disapproval he'd been using all day, "_When Hoff asked me, I'd said I wasn't interested_."

Shrugging, the elder of the two men took another drink from his glass, "_You've sounded a little off since getting back, so I thought you'd been ill_." Hermann paused a moment before calling on Mathilde for clarification, "_Wife, does Edward sound off to you?_"

The woman's reply was bitterly sweet, "_He sounds off all the time, Husband_."

"_Oh, shut up, you_," Ed snarled as the woman whipped a grin into her face.

Snapping her fingers, Tilly wiggled her way back to her feet and gave a sensual grin to the two men on the floor, "_I think it's high time we taste tested some of that absolutely lovely French wine Ed came back with! I will be right back_."

"_I'm beginning to suspect that wine is all she came here for_," Hermann clunked his head down into his hand.

Watching her fly away, Ed's chin returned to the table top, bitter and despondent.

"Stop doing that!" Winry snapped suddenly, emerging from her silence, "You're such an ass. Get over it!"

"He's a **troll**, Winry,"each syllable of the descriptive term precisely emphasized through Ed's sour face,"I'll put a week's pay down on Albrecht copping a feel on you the moment he sees an opening, and then I'm going to hear about it for the rest of my life!"

Winry's response was abrupt, "I'll punch him in the face if he does."

Ed paused for a moment to consider that, figuring it might actually be a true statement, before taking a more challenging tone with her,"You know, I didn't realize machine freaks mingled with the upper class."

"Oh shut up, you're a science nerd… an alchemy geek! At least I can functionally interact with society," Winry began to fray around the edges for the third time that day.

The wrinkle across Ed's nose worsened, "He kissed your hand. Normal, 'functioning' people don't say yes to a date just because their hand gets kissed."

With a deep and embarrassed sigh, having more or less accidentally agreed to go to the party with him when he'd done that, Winry ran her gaze up and traced it along the ridge of her eyebrows, "He and his family were really nice to me when they had to take care of me for that night where you had that… arm… thing…" her voice inadvertently trailed off, trying not to remember how Ed's mechanical arm had been unceremoniously taken off of him. She mentally shuddered at the thought. "I owe him tonight as a thank you, I guess. You keep telling me to be more lady-like, so this is me being proper and effeminate."

"Yeah, until he grabs your ass and sees you're crazy, because you put a hole in his skull with that wrench you stashed in your purse."

"YOU threatened to skin him alive when he asked me!"

"No, I said I'd feed his rotting corpse to the birds in the desert. That's different."

The argument was silenced when Hohenheim emerged from his adjacent study, sharply dressed in a black tuxedo, freshly polished shoes, and white bow-tie.

"WHAT!" Edward blurted, gawking at his father, "_where the hell are you going_?"

The father grinned before responding to his son, "_Winry's still under age, so I'll be her chaperone to the party_."

Choking out a laugh he hadn't expected to make, Ed's hand slapped down over his thigh, "_HAH! That's priceless_!" a sly grin crawled across his face as he looked to Winry and teased, "You and Albrecht are being chaperoned by my dad!"

"Yes," Winry glared back at him, unimpressed by the giddy response, "It's not like I have a dad to fuss over me. It's kind of… novel."

Ed rolled his eyes deviously. He put his elbow on the table and dropped his chin into the palm of his hand as he teased, "Uh-huh. Did he give you a curfew, too?"

There was a line Winry had drawn and Ed was walking it like a wobbly toddler. Since she kind of liked the lamp, and there wasn't anything else around in the room that she could clock him with, and the wrench was already in her purse, Winry opted for a different approach. Folding her arms, Winry's tongue became sassy, "Ed, when was the last time **you** went out on a date?"

Ed's portion of the conversation came to an abrupt end. With his chin still in his hand, the grin Ed had worn shrivelled up and his eyes shot to the other side of the room as he remained unresponsive to the question.

Grinning hotly, Winry crossed one leg over the other and carefully enunciated her words as she recaptured Ed's attention, "Uh-huh, and the score is: Winry – 1; Ed – 0."

Hermann's fascinated eyes shifted between the two parties that were now glaring bullets at each other, _"… I really should have paid more attention in English class_."

"_Oh God, this house…"_ shaking his head and giving a heavy clap of his hands, Hohenheim broke up the raging staring contest as he stepped into the path of the now silent war of words. He gave a serious look to his son, "_Edward, you and I need to have a talk tomorrow, so don't make yourself dysfunctional with the wine_."

"_Whatever_," Ed turned his attention to the corner of the room as his father offered a hand to help Winry to her feet.

With Winry focusing her disgusted gaze on one half of the room and Edward holding his miserable look to the other, Hohenheim escorted her from the room, passing Mathilde as she re-emerged with a bottle under her arm and an array of wine glasses woven through her fingers.

"_Have fun, you two_!" she called to the exiting pair.

Hermann's face twisted a bit as his wife placed her collection of wares down, "_Good Lord, woman_."

"_It's all for a good evening_," she grinned, sitting down. She redirected her attention to Edward as she sorted the arrangement, "_Well, aren't you a never-ending bundle of joy, Mister Sunshine. What did I miss?_"

"_Nothing,"_ grunting, Ed shifted around and graced the room with his full attention again as the woman began to distribute the glassware, "_start pouring, Tilly_."

* * *

Izumi wasn't used to hearing her name spoken in that voice, or with that odd accent. She would have considered it a figment of her imagination, if there weren't two hands holding tight over her arm, shaking the bed, trying to wake her.

Oh, if only she could mentally strangle people who woke her from her sleep.

Izumi turned over in bed, opening a tired eye in the direction of the intrusion. Brigitte looked back at her. It was always startling to see this girl and the look on her face. She had a foreign face that always looked lost in thought, confused and estranged, frightened and uncertain. Strangely enough, the girl had an undertone in her that was strong enough that she never seemed entirely devoured by those hauntings. But, this time the look the girl gave her in the middle of this Amestris night was different than all the others – she looked into Izumi's face with poignant determination and a tight strain of concern. Without hesitation, the teacher sat up.

"What's wrong?"

"Alphonse," was her answer. It would have been her answer no matter what the question had been.

There was a sinking feeling Izumi tried to keep afloat: the language barrier. They had practice working through it, but it was like a frustrating brainteaser without an answer key, especially when the information was something they really wanted from her. Izumi took a deep breath to calm her thoughts. Alphonse's name was the message, that much the woman could determine, but whether or not it was the answer to Izumi's question remained unknown.

"What's wrong with Alphonse?" asking the girl futile questions in a language she barely understood was becoming a bad habit, "show me."

In the dead of night, Izumi slipped from her bed. Brigitte backed up as the woman stood, and Izumi watched as she moved towards the door. The teacher followed cautiously, an air of concern floating around the child.

"Show me."

'Show me' was a word established in the charades they played. The party was never entirely sure if Brigitte actually understood the translation of the words, but girl from beyond the Gate had demonstrated that she understood that when the words 'show me' were spoken, that an example, a picture, an item, an _explanation _of some sort had to be presented. So, with the recognized prompt, the girl lead, taking Izumi's hand in hers, and pulling her down the dimmed hallway.

There were more than enough rooms on the floor for every person to have their own suite, but Alphonse had asked Izumi if he could room with Brigitte that night. He'd been all smiles and grins about the concept, but his motive was never entirely clear. He'd made some offhand statement about a game they were playing. Izumi dismissed the entire thing as inconsequential, since Al seemed rather aloof to his own request.

It was innocent enough. It was childish enough. It was Alphonse.

Standing in the doorway of the room the boy had requested, Izumi looked into a suite that was vacant. She looked around, not certain if she was even supposed to make anything out of the state of things she witnessed. Neither bed was made, so the room looked slept in, but no breathing body occupied the room. If Brigitte was with her, then where was Al? The bathroom? The teacher had considered doing a mental canvas of places within the building, but then why would Brigitte have brought the young Elric to her attention. Something wasn't right.

Brigitte suddenly ran deep into the room. Her hands came crashing down on the metallic window frame and she threw open the curtains, freeing a path for the moonlight to enter.

"Alphonse!" she pointed to the window.

Izumi's eyes looked at the girl a moment before she canvassed the room again. A sick concern hit her as she took in more of the scene. A kidnapping? Alphonse's hoody was gone. His bag was gone. At the point she realized his shoes were gone, her concern shifted. A hurried kidnapper wouldn't make someone put on their shoes and coat, something like that would have given an alchemist like Alphonse too much time to fight back… and then there was Brigitte, who was a witness to the scene.

"That stupid little…" Izumi's teeth clenched, her words addressing Brigitte without the expectation of reply, "did he leave through the window!"

Brigitte's shoulders sagged with uncertainty, "_Ma'am, I sure hope you're mad at him for sneaking outside in the middle of the night, because he startled me something fierce when I caught him,"_ she sighed, somewhat defeated by the language barrier, "_I told him '_no, no, no_' and he just told me to '_shhh'_ and pushed me back to the bed,_" She prattled on, making motions in her story like a character actor, explaining her story in the only way she could. Then at least Izumi would know there was a story, and a reason, even if she couldn't understand what it was, "_There was this boy earlier. He was the nakedest boy I've ever seen, I don't think I'd be allowed to look at my own husband that naked if I ever have one. His arms and legs were machines. His hair was like an uncombed lion's mane. He jumped in and out of the window like a cat, it made Al so upset, and he's been acting funny ever since."_

Izumi boiled on high. What the hell would possess Al to go out on his own in the middle of the night? Did he plan this? Was _this_ why he asked to room with Brigitte? Her thoughts bled into her words, speaking as if to curse, "This isn't just a 'game', Alphonse Elric. What the hell do you think you are doing?" her voice raged up like low thunder tumbling in from a distance, "where the hell do you think you are GOING!" The raging teacher swung to Brigitte. The girl looked back, seemingly unfazed by the aura that flared around Izumi, "Why?"

That was another keyword. Who, what, when, where, why: they were all keywords. 'Why' was sometimes too difficult, and 'How' was too hard – too many details and too many words, but the five-Ws? Those had been simplified for Brigitte to understand.

But this request was tough, because although Brigitte understood what she was being asked, she didn't actually know _why_ Alphonse had left. She couldn't answer the request.

Izumi sighed, reading the loss in the girl's face. Crouching down, Izumi invited Brigitte back over to the door. Taking the girls hands, Izumi calmed her own head and looked to the girl's clear blue eyes, "Tell me something. Anything. A word or something you remember. Al wouldn't run off without a reason," the teacher was more than certain about that, "he knows you can't tell me the reason, that's why he chose you tonight, because you're the best secret keeper we have. He's being very careful and when I find him I'm going to break his legs so he doesn't run off alone again, so I need your help," the woman's words were calm, calculated, oddly soothing, but deathly serious, "there's something he was afraid to tell me, or tell anyone. Something I think you might know. A where? A what? A who?"

"Wrath," Brigitte answered suddenly – she knew 'a who'; a strange, nearly-naked 'who' that hadn't been present before; that had obviously upset Alphonse's world. She wasn't certain if the name was of any use, but he'd caused the change in Al's behaviour. When Izumi's touch turned to ice and her body froze up like the Siberian tundra Brigitte had learnt about in school, the girl became very aware that the name meant something.

"Thank you," Izumi's posture, now caught in a war between the flame of her rage and chill of her fears, rose up from the ground and stood firm on two legs. The woman whipped out a string of unintelligible curses, and the rage of frustration in her body threatened to melt even the toughest steel. She marched to the wall with the window Al had escaped through and, with the slap of her palms together, Izumi's hands crashed down on the wall. With a spark of the alchemy current, the teacher carved open a gaping hole into the streets below, "I know where he's going."

Brigitte's jaw fell open, her complexion draining to sheet white at the alchemy act she'd witnessed.

"Stay in the hotel, Brigitte. Don't follow me," that wasn't something Izumi realized she didn't need to concern herself with, the girl from beyond the Gate was too spellbound and frightened by what she'd seen to even think of leaving, "Go to Ms. Ross' room and sleep with her again, understand? Maria Ross."

Drenched in white panic, Brigitte backed away, watching as Izumi left through the hole in the wall. The girl's hands hastily grabbed at the bedroom door handle and pulled the room shut as she fled down the hall.

* * *

"_This is Winry Rockbell,_" Albrecht beamed, introducing the blonde girl courtly draped over his right arm.

"_Hello_," Winry's pathetic German trembled even at the simplest of words. She could barely grasp salutations let alone full sentences; Ed had become her walking translator. The sound of the language scared her in the first place.

"_Albrecht, where did you find such a beautiful thing?_" the unknown woman gave a smile to Winry.

"_She literally appeared one day, pretty like an angel_," the boy, barely old enough to be called a man, tried not to grin as loudly as he would have liked, "_she's a friend of a friend, I suppose. She does look lovely, doesn't she?_"

Winry began to suspect that every conversation was going to go like this, since they all seemed to sound the same. The first ten, the next ten – did this guy, with his broken record introduction, know everybody? So many people packed this room full of woven greenery, candle lights, staged displays, strange ornaments and bland food. Christmas made no sense. Music played from a few instrument players, the odd child singer would step up to make the audience swoon. The men and women all greeted her, kissed her hand, kissed her cheek, smiled at her, and asked to dance with her. Winry voluntarily gave up her right to say yes or no to dancing with anyone, delegating the responsibility to Albrecht who seemed to savour the role of granting Winry permission to dance with anyone other than him.

She was a blonde-haired arm ornament – just as tacky as all the seasonal decorations.

Winry nursed one of the many 'somethings' that had been given to her to drink as she stood with her backside against the drink table

"Enjoying yourself?" Hohenheim asked, saddling up next to her in the sudden absence of Albrecht.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, "not like any date I ever imagined," she looked around, wondering what caught Albrecht's attention so abruptly that he actually stepped away from her, "it's like some aristocratic party in Central that you hear about on the last page of the newspaper."

"You know, you don't have to eat or drink everything handed to you," the elder man grinned, watching as she swished her drink around absently, clashing the ice cubes in the glass.

Winry tightened her lips, "I know, but I'm trying to be polite and courteous and proper and lady-like, and delicate like a goddamn freakin' flower," she let go a disgusted sigh over herself, twisting her face as Albrecht came back into view, "I feel ridiculous, I think I'm wilting."

Hohenheim laughed at the assessment.

"Winry," Albrecht exclaimed, guiding her hands quickly back to his right arm, "this song is very good. Please dance to it."

His English was so heavily enunciated that Winry's right eye wanted to twitch every time he spoke, "Sure."

Winry passed a fleeting glance back at Hohenheim as she was led into the crowded dance floor. In a gallant motion, Albrecht swung her arm high, spinning Winry around to the music once, then twice, and then a third time for good measure. His fingers released her raised arm and, as Winry came around, her hands landed in the possession of someone else entirely.

"Hi," Winry blinked absently at the unknown figure.

"Good evening," this man's English was passable.

"Winry, please to introduce yourself to Adolf Hitler," Albrecht's voice was bouncy, like a child worshipping an older sibling, "he is a very good friend."

"A pleasure," he swept up Winry's right hand and kissed it, "may we dance, Miss Rockbell?" asked the man with stiff, dark hair and strong, unrelenting eyes.

"Okay," she gave in, figuring that Albrecht had actually arranged this particular dance, unlike the others where the requestor had to coax Winry away. With her right hand softly placed in this man's left palm, and her other hand resting on his shoulder, Winry moved to step in time with the body carrying an intriguing aura. Eyes seemed to change with each passing step and the gravity of the room shifted. How fascinating, Winry observed; the world was rotating around her.

No, that was wrong. She had to correct herself – it was rotating around _him._

"You do not have proper hands for a woman, Miss Rockbell," were the words that came from the man she danced with, "they're too strong, not delicate enough, lack fingernails and polish. You have the hands of a working man."

Winry wasn't certain if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult, "I like to work with my hands. I'm the best mechanic you'll ever meet."

"A woman?" he laughed and shook his head, "You are too kind on the eyes for hands like this," the language from this man flowed better, but carried a far heavier accent than Albrecht's – Winry somewhat preferred that. It felt far less difficult to communicate with. "And you're nineteen, twenty years old?"

She gave an un-lady-like snort to the suggestion, "No, I'm seventeen."

"Fascinating, usually Albrecht brings upperclassmen to engagements," his thoughts drifted through topics, "and you're the one who's been taking care of Edward Elric?"

"No, he takes care of me, actually. I'm just his, uh, prosthetics repairman… woman."

"Since he found you in the Hall, isn't that so?" the man's words continued to run without ever having felt like there'd been a beginning to the conversation – they'd hopped right into the middle of some kind of correspondence. Winry nodded to answer the question as the man took her through a few sharp steps to the music, "And what does Edward think of the array on the floor there?" he mused, spinning Miss Rockbell at the centre of the universe, "he is an alchemist in study, like his father, I understand."

Her hand came back to his shoulder, his hand to her side, and Winry lost the sound of the music in the room. It was still playing, right?

"He's impressed by it," she answered as a tantalizing string fell free in her thoughts, "do you know where it came from?"

"I made it," was the casual answer. Again, Winry spun; her lips curiously spoke 'did you?' as her dress flared out at her knees. The man she danced with qualified his statement as he took her back into a proper hold, "with help of course, I had to do my research after all. It was a combined effort between myself and colleagues; a rather hush-hush project. I've let others take credit for it. Would you like to know how I came up with such a thing?"

"I would, yes," Winry smiled, intrigued by the sudden offer, "If it's in a book or a diagram somewhere, I'd love to get a copy – to give to Ed for a birthday gift. It would make his year."

"Is his birthday soon?" he asked curiously.

Winry's smile continued to hold, stagnant and unchanging, holding as firm as the stoic smile that covered this man's face like a black veil, "Yes, in a few weeks."

The earth shook as the man with skin a tough as leather, hair as dark as night, and eyes as strong as steel opened his mouth to speak again. But words did not escape his lips. The world shuddered so hard that the earth may have cracked. No one other than Winry and he could feel the earth tremble like it did beneath two heavy feet at the moment Hohenheim's hand came down onto Winry's shoulder.

"_May I cut in?_" Hohenheim's words were chosen to be German.

"_Of course_," Adolf stepped back, his melancholy smile never waning as he began to move away.

Hohenheim offered a proper hand to Winry, "May I finish this dance, young lady?"

"Uh…" it was the dullest, most confused sound she'd made in weeks, "okay."

Taken up by Edward's father, Winry watched the force pulling at the centre of the universe walk away from them without any further acknowledgement, salutation, or show of interest.

"Winry…" Hohenheim's words trailed off, refusing to cast a glance over his shoulder in Adolf's wake, "would you do me one kind favour for the remainder of the evening? Try your best to be delicate like a flower and become a corsage on Albrecht's arm, please?"

Winry winced at the strange request, drawing up an odd mental picture in her head, but felt oddly intimidated into obliging him.

* * *

She hadn't _meant_ to wake Maria up, but Brigitte kind of hoped it would happen. She wanted the company. The barely teenaged girl didn't know why it was more reassuring to see the worried expression on Ms. Ross' face than her sleeping one. Regardless of the why's, her conscious presence was welcomed.

With her knees drawn up, Brigitte sat on the unoccupied side of the double bed, with the pillow wrapped in her arms.

Maria, for the last half-hour, could not figure out what had the girl so bent out of shape. The worst part for the officer was that Brigitte just kept talking. The girl wouldn't eat the food she'd dug out, or drink the boxed beverages and bottled water offered, but she was more than content to keep running on in foreign tongue. Ross had considered waking someone to help her, but if it was just a nightmare that was worrying the girl, it seemed a little excessive to have a crowd up in the middle of the night. Brigitte didn't appear to be hiding from anything, she hadn't appeared to try and warn Maria of anything, or try and show her anything, her words didn't sound like she was disturbed in any way; Brigitte just seemed to be sulking on the bed.

For her part, the girl from beyond the Gate knew that Maria didn't understand her words, and Brigitte didn't particularly care that there was this huge barrier in their way. She was going to be heard whether it was understood or not.

"_Can I just go home?_" Brigitte asked the rhetorical question again.

Maria frowned at the hurt in the girl's voice, "Honey, I've tried, I really have, but I don't understand what you want from me. I'm sorry."

"_Is there some reason you're keeping me away from my parents?_" the German words continued.

Maria looked around, tired from the few hours of sleep and lack of progress on this problem, "Maybe, if you drew a picture for me…" she looked around for the pad of paper and colouring pencils.

Brigitte shook her head, "_I don't understand why I'm here. I don't think I'm a prisoner, because you buy me things and feed me really good food. I thought I was going to be a slave, but I don't do anything; I just follow everybody around. Everyone tries to find out about what home is like, and about Edward Elric,_" her head continued to shake, bobbing around atop the pillow, "_and then there's people here who do magic and sorcery with their hands when they clap them; that little girl did it once and Izumi did it just now. Are you all sorcerers? Are the British training sorcerers now for the next time you try to conquer someone?"_

The lieutenant began emptying a backpack onto a small work table, "Where are they?"

"_I thought making science through written circles was weird enough to think about, but to see hand magic! I want to go home,_" she absently pulled her knees tighter into her chest as he words ran.

Her sigh cut through the middle of the night, and Maria gave up trying to find where the coloured pencils and paper had gone. She looked across the room to the bed again, eyeing the girl balling herself up tighter, "… Brigitte…?"

"_I'd run away if I knew where to go,_" she sniffed to clear her head, "_I really would. But that's scarier than staying here._"

"Honey, don't start crying," Maria pleaded helplessly, walking back to the bed, "I don't understand what's wrong, and I wouldn't know where to begin to make it better."

"_Why can't you just send me home?"_ unintentional anger began to rise into the lost German girl. She didn't want to be angry; she wanted to be rational, alert, negotiable, and mature – so far in her life that strategy had gotten her out of a few predicaments. But, she also wanted to cry. It was the conflict that made her angry and frustrated. Brigitte wished she could turn her mind off, "_It's so hot here when the sun is up, I keep thinking I'm going to melt. And everything's so bright and blinding and colourful... it hurts my eyes to look at things outdoors! I'd imagine this is what the equator might look like with its burning sunshine all the time."_

Finding herself somewhat desperate, Maria walked around the bed to the side Brigitte occupied. She had intended to slide herself onto the mattress, but stopped when her foot kicked something. The officer looked down, "There're the pencils!"

Brigitte watched as the colourful array of pencil crayons were tossed up from the floor, along with a pad of paper. When Maria stood up again with mildly triumphant smile, Brigitte could only frown back at her, "_If you can just send me home, I'll never go anyplace without permission again, I promise. I'll close my eyes and sleep the whole time you take me. I won't tell anyone about this place and you can keep your sorcery secrets. No one would believe me anyways._"

Sitting down next to Brigitte on the bed, Maria handed her the case of coloured pencils and placed the pad of lined paper in her lap, "Alright hon, I need you to draw something to show me what's wrong."

With wrinkles creasing her face, the girl pushed her collection of writing tools away, "_I don't want to play charades anymore. Take me home._"

"Oh, that's not good," Maria's expression fell, watching as Brigitte folded her arms stubbornly. Collecting the pencils and paper, Maria opened the pencil case and pulled out a regular lead pencil. "Maybe, I'll draw something for you and you can add to it."

Peeking from the corners of her eyes, Brigitte watched as the officer drew the shapes of a man and a woman holding hands; the girl likened them to the images on bathroom signs. Rather than have the paper and pencil forced into her lap, Maria offered them to Brigitte instead. Stiffening her arms defiantly, she looked at the offering with annoyance before snatching them away from Maria, "_Fine._"

Two smaller girls, like bathroom signs with curly hair, were added to the picture, and names were printed above. A simple house frame was drawn around them all.

Maria had seen this picture before, "This is your family, isn't it?" Her fingers traced over the people, "you, your sister, mom and dad."

Brigitte nodded.

Pausing with a thought, the officer took the pencil and paper back from the girl and placed them down on the bed sheets as her voice softened, "I'm sure you miss them. I doubt you have any idea what's happened, and I could tell you about it, but you wouldn't understand me if I tried," she gave a laugh at her own statement, "I don't think I even understand it."

Sinking back into the pillows and headboard of the hotel bed, Brigitte watched quietly as Maria continued to talk.

"But, I don't think they're why you came in here. You were suddenly upset by something," the officer could clearly recall the initial look of shock on the girl's face. She reached a hand out and swept the girl's short hair behind her ear, "you're thinking of your family now, and that's what people do when something's wrong – they want their family. But how come you were upset? How do I ask you to tell me what frightened you before you came to see me?"

Continuing to be unresponsive, Brigitte held her focus in the bedding she sat on.

"Come on hon, work with me," Maria coaxed, her words still soft, "a word or something you can pass along. I know you know 'Whats' and 'Wheres' and 'Whos'…"

Brigitte's attention perked at the words given to her again; those _prompts_. She did know an answer to at least one of the prompts, but the word had made a strong woman's blood run cold and a boy's behaviour change. She didn't understand why. But, she did know that the mention of 'who' had caused sorcery. Was this woman a sorceress too? She'd been with Maria little longer than she'd known Izumi, and Ms. Ross didn't seem anything like the person Ms. Curtis was. Still, she hesitated.

"Come on…" Maria read Brigitte's recognition of something in her words, and repeated herself, "work with the prompts we used at the cabin."

Brigitte continued to mull the word that upset a world she didn't understand. So far, everyone's reaction to the nearly-naked boy, his presence, and his name, had been different. What would Maria's be? She seemed to be the softest of all the adults…

"Wrath."

Brigitte voluntarily gave up the frightening word again, her eyes suddenly fixated on Maria to see her reaction to the name of the half-mechanical boy with wiry black hair.

Unlike the chilling fire in Izumi, Maria's eyes began to flicker with a deep, serious concern that flashed around the room. Her mouth wrenched open as her upper body began to stiffen. Again, it was in no way a positive response. Who the heck was that boy? He'd seemed pretty nice, all things considered.

"Oh shit…" Maria pulled to her feet.

"_Don't you dare make things happen with magic, I'll run away if you do!_" Brigitte's words were threatening, but she wasn't sure how much substance the statement truly held.

Reaching back to the bed, Maria claimed the hands of the girl from beyond the Gate, "Stay on the bed. I have to go get some people. Okay? Stay."

Like an obedient puppy, Brigitte sat and watched as the woman walked away and reached into her bag. From within, a hand gun was produced that lifted the girl's attention. Brigitte wasn't entirely certain if a gun was a safer reaction than magically making walls vanish, but at least it wasn't something unreal. Fascinated by the reaction, she watched as the officer slipped out of the room without creating a single sound. A wink was given back to Brigitte with a silencing finger to the officer's lips as the door shut behind her.

* * *

There was a chair in the corner of the house. It was a fat chair that rocked, and had a footrest that popped out when the wooden handle on the side was pulled. This chair was tucked away in a nook of the house by the back door. No one ever sat in it. It had a frailly thin, fairly tall table situated over the right shoulder. A very dusty and rarely used candle lamp sat on the meagre table, unusually lit with a tiny, flickering flame.

Tonight, Ed sat in the chair, the heels of his feet dug into the inner-edge of the footrest that he'd extended from the front of the plush rocker. The Elric sat snug in a woollen sweater and washed out black pants that he'd worn lazily in the house all day long. His long hair showing no sign of a crimp; he hadn't tied it back all day. He was not seated properly in any way, the underarm of his left side pushed into the arm of the chair, while the entire weight of his head rested in the palm of that left hand.

Winry walked into the room and she stood at the furthest point from his view. She didn't see him there. Without a word, his eyes followed her as she walked. She was looking for something, and not finding it.

"Winry," Ed called.

"Oh! There you are," her face scrunched up, "what are you doing over there?"

"We're talking," this was Hohenheim's voice, his figure masked by the low lighting.

Ed watched her startle at the unexpected sound of his father's voice; the man sat on a stool he'd brought over to this ignored corner of the house.

"What's up?" Winry asked, curiously looking at the two men who seemed colder than ice.

"We were talking about Adolf Hitler," Hohenheim spoke slowly, waiting for Winry to recognize the name.

After a moment to think, a light went on in her eyes, "That guy I danced with last night?"

The fingertips of Ed's left hand dug into his face, his voice deep and harsh, "Are you kidding me?"

"Edward…" his father's voice was warning.

"You didn't say she DANCED with him!" the son's rage snapped back.

"I hadn't gotten there yet…"

Winry looked between the two men, kneeling down to the floor and resting her shoulder up against the footrest of Ed's chair, "I'm missing something, aren't I?"

Ed smacked his lips in disgust, drawing in a tight breath through his teeth, "Envy."

"Envy is in that man's head," Hohenheim qualified for his son.

From the corner of his eye, Ed watched as Winry mulled around the answer. Adolf Hitler meant as little to her as any passing man on the street. His significance, his ties, his connections, his place in society did not connect for her. But Envy? Ed knew that name meant something to her.

"… Is that why you came with me?" she asked the elder Elric hesitantly.

"Yes."

"And he knows who you are, _Hohenheim_," the son's words were rancid and bitter, "he knows who you are, who I am, and who Winry is. You put Winry in danger."

The angry son did not have the ability to easily get a rise out of his father, and Hohenheim's words remained unwavering, "She was not in any danger. He was simply toying with us, to see what we'd do. If I withdrew Winry after she'd agreed to attend, what explanation would I have given to the Haushofers on such short notice?"

Ed's eyes narrowed, "That she was sick."

Hohenheim shook his head, "He was looking to get a rise out of me by doing that, and nothing else. I won't give him any more fuel than is absolutely necessary, Edward. Now, he's getting a rise out of you. That's exactly what he wants."

Edward burned in his chair, hot under his collar and wanting so badly to lash out and do something_._ He wasn't entirely sure what just yet, but strangling his father seemed like a good starting point, "_I don't give a rat's ass about what he wants or what the hell you were thinking. Don't you dare let him near her again_."

Winry peeked an eye over her shoulder to Ed's unknown German.

Hohenheim's eyes lowered in thought, taking a glance to his fuming child balled up in a chair that served no purpose in the house other than cradling his anger, "I'll be leaving the Thule Society in the new year."

A wave washed through the room and Edward's brow rose.

"Everyone there is too close to him, and we need to keep a distance," Hohenheim's gaze slipped between the figure on the floor and the one in the chair, "After Christmas, when we have our next meeting, I want you two to come by the hall afterwards," with his hands to his knees, the old father slowly stood up, "we'll take measurements, diagram the layout, take down everything that there is to know about that structure and find out if there's not something we can take from it to get you two home."

It wasn't until then that Winry realized something, something that had never occurred to her before, and it came out in her voice before she'd had time to think it through, "You're not coming home with us?"

The old man laughed lightly, shaking his head, "No, Winry, I'm not. I accepted a long time ago that this would be where I finish off my days."

Ed snorted, watching his old man leave the room as the weak candlelight flickered through his golden eyes.

"That's not right…" Winry's voice filled the void Hohenheim had left behind, "I'd always thought he was coming with us. Al would like that." She peeked over her shoulder as Ed cleared his throat. He gave a heavy sigh as his hand gripped over his face. The time that elapsed between her final words and when Winry chose to speak again had felt like a walk along a path littered with shattered glass.

"I'm fine, Ed. Nothing happened to me."

His fingers scratched over his skin as his hand fought around the frame of his face, "Not the point," Ed pushed his bangs back into the rest of his hair, "Dad knew… he _knew,_ Winry, and he still let you go to that party," a horrid taste procured in the flowing information, "Envy found his way into one of the most influential rising powers, even I can see that. And this man is just… he's a boar. We have to back away from him," his hand returned to his face again, only over his mouth, allowing frustration to rage in his eyes, "Fuck, I hate this…"

Winry shifted, sliding her knees under herself, and folding her arms across the footrest. She put her chin down into the wrap of her arms, "We're still going to be able to get home, right? I mean, just because your dad's not a member, that doesn't mean that we'll never be able to use the hall again if we need it?"

"If we find anything useful once we go over the hall's layout information, we can always sneak in," a bitter snap echoed in Ed's voice as he laughed at a thought, "I sure hope that hall has some useful information, cause recreating any of it would be an absolute bitch. I don't want to stay here that long."

"Me neither…"

A formidable aura rose up in the room that wrapped around Ed's frustrations and Winry's concern – it polluted the air. It was a little thick and a bit too dirty.

With a warm puff of air from her lips, Winry tried to blow it away, "The party sucked, by the way."

A far less abrasive Edward appeared for this conversation, "I told you: machine freaks and upper class are not a good mix."

"I need a mechanic or repairman to go out on a date with me," Winry pouted, plunking her chin back down on the footrest, "much better boyfriend material."

Ed's face twisted at the choice, "Oh god, that'd be awful."

"No, it wouldn't," she perked with protested, "We'd obviously have very similar tastes."

"Yeah right," Ed rolled his eyes, his voice picking up, "you'd destroy him. His work would never be up to your standards, you'd nag him to death over every nit picky thing, because I guarantee you you're not going to find a guy as anal about workmanship detail as you… and if you DID, your ego would be so hurt that you wouldn't be going out with him in the first place."

Edward very quickly found the bottom side of Winry's house slipper slapped in his face.

* * *

"WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO!" Mustang's volume snapped like a cannon shot, and he flung his words around to every officer in earshot as he kept his one eye fixated on the gaping hole in the wall of the room where early morning sunlight showered in through, "Why would they leave in the middle of the night!"

Stepping past her superior into the room, Riza gave an inquisitive glance to the coloured sketches Lt. Ross had gotten Brigitte to draw up earlier, "… Intriguing…"

"What is?" the most senior officer snarled.

Riza glanced over the drawing before looking beyond her fiery superior officer to Brigitte, who hid behind Lt. Ross and Lt. Havoc. "Brigitte?" she asked for the girl's attention, waiting until she was certain she had it before proceeding, "Is this Wrath?"

"What the hell is Wrath doing here!" Mustang barked.

"Please be quiet, Sir, you're frightening the child," Hawkeye chomped down on her commanding officer before readdressing the girl with the drawing in hand, "Wrath?"

Slowly, as Brigitte had done with Maria, she gave a nod to the name.

"Why would Wrath show up!" Mustang again snapped his question to all the listening ears, "and why the hell would they both take off and not tell anyone!"

The two lieutenants standing at the doorway exchanged glances before Maria offered a suggestion, "Maybe they didn't have time?"

Again, Mustang ripped out a string of curses, spinning towards the gaping hole and slamming his hands down on the sides of makeshift exit, "Why are these goddamn Elrics so impossible to keep track of."

The three additional officers in the room exchanged a collection of uncomfortable and concerned glances before Hawkeye addressed Mustang again, "Sir, we did make an arrangement that made our intentions separate from Izumi and Alphonse's. If they've chosen to go off for some reason, I'm assuming they are free to do so."

"Yes, they are," the officer's shoulders stiffened as his hands gripped tighter on the displaced concrete wall.

"So, what's the problem?" Havoc asked.

Mustang pushed away from the wall abruptly, a definite drop in his tone becoming prevalent, "Delegating the responsibility of finding FullMetal to those two was difficult enough, but it was the right thing to do. I'm not delusional enough to think that I stood a chance against knowledge I barely understood. But, the Elric Brothers are still something I take as a responsibility, so having the only Elric here vanish with mention of a homunculus, with a woman who doesn't _want_ him to be my responsibility – that rubs me the wrong way," his only eye twitched a moment, watching as Brigitte's attention become distracted and she wandered off down the hall, "because I don't know what the motive is or where they're going."

Riza gave a curious suggestion, "I'd think that if they were intentionally running off without informing any of us, there wouldn't be this huge, gaping hole in the wall."

Mustang slipped another glance to the disfigured wall before turning back to look at the two lieutenants, "If any word comes around in regards to their whereabouts, inform me immediately."

"Of course, Sir," was the collective response.

Looking over his shoulder, Havoc did a double take realizing that Brigitte was no longer there, "Hey, where'd the kid go?"

"Down the hall," Mustang waved his hand dismissively.

Sticking his head out the door, Havoc peered into the hall. Upon spying Brigitte, the body language of the officer's voice was not one of discovery or realization, it was surprise and confusion, "Huh?"

Everyone's attention drew to Havoc as he stepped out of the room, taking a surprised step backwards when a very proper young woman shook his hand, "Good morning, Lieutenant. I thought we were the only early risers on this side of town."

All eyes trained in on the unfamiliar face with an unknown voice. The group stiffened with caution – this floor was secure, no one but people authorized by Mustang made their way up the stairs this far.

"Who are you?" Mustang demand abruptly.

"We haven't been introduced. My name is Roze Thomas," the young woman with smooth, darkened skin introduced herself, looking into the room, "Russell and Fletcher Tlingum brought me to see you at my request."

Mustang and Hawkeye's expressions eased as Russell poked his head into the room, "Mornin' folks! We hear the ankle biter has been causing you problems, so we looked you up. Roze won't do as she's told and go west until she's had her two cens worth."

Calmly, Roze stepped into the room, eyeballing the gaping hole Izumi had left before turning her words to the lead officer in the room, "You're Brigadier General Roy Mustang, right? I need to talk to you about Dante…"

The woman's careful and collected words ensnared Mustang's attention, "Roze Thomas, you said?" he watched her confirm the statement with a nod, "I've heard your name before. You're from Lior."

"Yes," Roze responded, still grossly displeased by her oncoming statement, "Ed is responsible for exposing Cornello to us, and saving me from Dante."

"Saving you from Dante?" Havoc's words were sudden and unbound like everyone else's thoughts.

Roze nodded.

At the very pit of his stomach, Mustang really, _really_ wished Izumi would just happen to come back, "Very interesting." His single eye narrowed at the woman standing strong on two legs before him, "I won't humour you by pretending to understand I know what kind of monster Dante is, or what kind of knowledge she possesses."

"You don't have to know. No one does. I certainly don't," the woman from Lior laughed at that idea before stiffening her words, "but Dante seems to think that if she frightens us where we're most vulnerable, we become too concerned about ourselves, our lives, and all those important things around us to stand up, step forward, and make things change," the woman's hands swept over her dress, looking back at the two Tlingum brothers in the doorway, "after I met with Gracia, I went to see if I could find out with my own eyes what was going on. Thanks to Dante, I can navigate the Empty City like the back of my hand, and I think I've seen enough."

"… What on earth is 'The Empty City'?" Mustang asked, all tone lost in his words.

The woman shook her head to Mustang's question, "Not something we should talk about now." Roze sighed, again looking around at the people whose attention she'd garnered, "but, what we should talk about is Dante, because she is walking around in the body of Nina Tucker, and from what the boys have told me, you don't know that yet."

The moment the young woman's words escaped her tongue, the morning fog lifted from the air, and everyone took their next breath. Eyes of the military exchanged glances before returning to focus intently on the woman from the decimated city of Lior.

**

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To Be Continued…

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Author's Note:

- Wow, my 30th chapter!

- No external art for the chapter :( I tried, but nothing came of it. C'est la vie.

- Izumi _could_ have gone through the window, but she's too cool to climb through windows. She'll rage on the wall and make a hole with alchemy to relieve stress *nod*

- Post-Edit - Italics got bruitalized when I uploaded *fixes*

**Reviews:**

- I shall no longer resist the review reply feature. Acceptance of change is good. Thank you to everyone who reviews.


	31. Pieces of Family

**Part XXXI - Chapter 82 – Pieces of Family  
**

* * *

There was an abundance of awkward silence in the room that Hohenheim walked around in, and he feigned ignorance to the silence deliberately. The old man moved from the corner of the room to the coffee and sofa tables that were covered with numerous paper and glass things, some of which sparkled or glittered. His smile grew a little more every time he stole a glance of Winry standing at the back of the couch. He would keep this moment cherished with wild amusement, growing better still when she finally spoke.

"Um," Winry glanced around hesitantly, "there's a pine tree in the living room."

"It's a fir tree, actually. And yes, there is," was his matter-of-fact answer, as though nothing were out of place or wrong about a Christmas tree.

"Same difference," Winry moved her balance from left foot to right foot, then back again, as her fingers kneaded the back of the couch, "_Why_ is there a pine tree in the living room? It's going to turn brown and die," she eyeballed the clean cut at its base.

"It'll only be here for a week, and then I'll chop it up for firewood," Hohenheim thought that this conversation was funny, and he tried not to laugh. It was just as funny as when Edward had seen this tradition – the boy hadn't said much, but the clearly perplexed look on his son's face had been absolutely priceless.

Sweeping her hair over one shoulder, Winry rubbed her hands together uneasily before running her fingers through the ends of her hair, "And you're making it pretty… now that it's met this untimely demise?"

Hohenheim would laugh at that. Straightening up, he grinned over to her, "It's for Christmas. Most households will have one. There were trees decorated at the party, remember?"

"Yeah, but I thought they were decorated for the party…" she replied in defence, recalling the party from a few days prior. Her eyes darted around the room, trying to see if there were other things she might be missing, "this holiday isn't making any sense. Why put a holiday this close to new years anyways?"

"It's a religious thing, Winry, let's leave it at that," collecting a worn box full of painted glass bulbs, Hohenheim wrapped a few wire hooks around his pinky finger, took a spool of thread into his hand, and moved back to the tree.

When the front door opened, all attention was refocused to the end of the hall behind Winry. Dropping an oversized paper bag to the floor with a thud, Ed entered without a word or greeting, and shut the door behind himself.

Hohenheim's brow rose a little with curiosity, "What's in the bag, Edward?"

Without taking off his coat, but stepping out of his boots, Ed snagged up the bag again and marched into the living room. He put his empty shoulder against a wall and replied flatly, "Laundry."

Interesting, Hohenheim thought before speaking further, "That's quite a bit of laundry. Are you doing laundry in brown paper bags now? Doesn't that get the bag soggy?"

"Shut up," he hissed at his father. Ed lifted the bag by its handles and shook it, "This is the laundry I took to the tailors."

The fingers on Winry's left hand danced at her chin, "Does that mean your pants fit now? Or should you dare pulling them down lower, so your ankles aren't an embarrassment?"

"You can shut that noise hole too," Ed pointed a daring finger at the giggling girl, "at least it was cheaper than buying new pants. I really hadn't planned on spending that much money before the new year."

Hohenheim tipped his head in thought, pulling a hum and a haw into his voice, "Did you have any money left for Christmas gifts?"

"I don't buy people Christmas gifts," Ed dropped his statement like a weighty brick.

Winry's gaze darted between the two men, "You buy gifts for people on this holiday?"

"Yes, you do."

"No, you don't."

Hohenheim turned to Winry, "I buy Christmas gifts for people and Edward chooses not to participate."

"Aw shit," Ed's upper body sagged as he stepped away from the wall, "you bought gifts, didn't you? I told you not to."

Winry's expression sagged as well, "I don't have any money to buy gifts…"

Grinning, Hohenheim passed a comforting gaze Winry's way, "It's a 'it's the thought that counts' kind of gift exchange. I expect nothing from either of you. But, I did think it would be nice to do something more traditional, since Winry's never seen the holiday before."

Ed's expression soured as he started grumbling, "If you start singing Christmas Carols, I'll kill you."

"You can _sing?_" her expression widened with a childish delight at the man fussing over the tree, "can I hear?"

"NO," Ed announced to any creature that might be living in the cracks of the house.

Laughing, Hohenheim kept his attention squarely on the decorating task at hand as an amusing thought struck him, "Edward, take Winry out to see some carolers. They should be out this evening."

"Why me?" he stiffened at the order given, "I don't do this bullshit holiday crap."

"Well, I'm decorating the tree, you're still wearing your coat, and I think Winry would enjoy herself."

Winry shuffled her way into Ed's line of sight, flashing a pair of wide, shimmering eyes at him, "I'd like to see what carolers are, Ed."

"They sing holiday songs in a language you don't understand," Edward began to whine when Winry wouldn't leave him be, like he was suddenly suffering through excruciating agony, "Why do I have to do this! I don't want to see any carolers."

"Pleeeease!" Winry took on a similar whine to her tone. She tugged on his empty right coat sleeve.

"No, just… no. Son of a bitch… DAD!" the young man's voice cried out in protest as the tugging and waving of his armless coat sleeve continued, a bit more eagerly than before, accompanied by a pleading whine that dragged on and on… and on…

"FINE! Shut up, we'll go!" Ed relented.

"Go put something warm on Winry, you're going to be outside," Hohenheim instructed with the wave of his hand, much to the chagrin of his son.

Letting go of Edward's sleeve, she giggled and quickly vanished from the room, her footsteps thudding up the stairwell of the house.

"Why the hell did you volunteer me for this?" Ed's whine subsided to more of an angry bark, "you know I don't like this garbage."

"I know I know," Hohenheim acknowledged, setting a few ornaments back down on the table, "but, let Winry come to her own conclusions. You can't force your opinions on her all the time and it _is_ one of the more pleasant times of year. There's something that can be said for that."

"UGH," Ed groaned. Throwing his head back, he dragged himself back down the hallway.

* * *

A light drizzle began to run from the grey sky overhead, and Alphonse lifted the hood of his jacket over his head. Pulling the strings, he adjusted the knapsack he wore and continued to walk in time with Wrath who appeared unaware of the rain's presence. Al figured Winry would end up being the death of this homunculus if she ever saw the state of the AutoMail, and how Wrath was completely indifferent to how the elements affected it. At least her workmanship was excellent and the AutoMail still functioned well enough.

Al concluded that Wrath had actually been waiting for him outside of town, like some sort of guide dog following it's master's instructions, because there would have been no way he would have caught up otherwise. Wrath seemed genuinely happy to have the company, though he'd occasionally pipe up about how he was looking forward to his treat of red stones. Al passively wondered if there was any way to prevent that. But, his focus at the moment wasn't that; it was Winry and his brother – two things Dante had a ton of information on. Again and again, the young Elric tried to convince himself of Mustang's words: killing Winry wouldn't fit with Dante's style. Why would she tease everyone so much just to anger him with her death? If she wanted to meet with Alphonse Elric, and wanted to talk about something, fine, he'd do it. He was tired of ulterior motives, political agendas, fear mongering, and general caution. They weren't getting him anywhere; in fact, they seemed to be setting him back. He'd accepted during this walk that his actions had been selfish, rash, and poorly thought out, but maybe that would help change things up. If he behaved a little more like his brash older brother, then maybe things would fall in to place. Ed seemed to have an infinite amount of luck with that sometimes.

But, in the meantime, Alphonse had Wrath to talk to, and the homunculus seemed to have no problem answering any question given to him. He easily answered questions about Dante, questions about Tucker, and questions about Nina. As the walk continued, Al thought up a new line of questioning.

"Wrath?" his thoughts drifted in and out of the wooded area they wandered through, "Who's Aisa?"

The young creature stopped dead in its tracks. It wasn't at all the reaction Al had thought he would get, and he could have sworn Wrath shivered, "Aisa's gross…"

"Gross?" the young Elric filed the description in the mental folder of 'not what I was expecting'. "Gross like…?" he took a few steps ahead, trying to keep Wrath moving.

"Gross like bad leftovers in a stew pot," was Wrath's conclusion as he began walking again, hopping over a fallen tree trunk along the way.

"Yum…" Al shook his head to dispose of the strange imagery. He slid his hands into his pockets, "is she a homunculus like you?"

"No, I'm real," Wrath answered, quite affirmatively, "but that, she's… um… leftovers."

At least the answer wasn't 'yes', Al concluded, because that would have meant someone else had tried human transmutation, and he didn't want to get into that realm again. But, then what did that make Aisa? Leftovers? Human, hopefully, "So, why does Dante like her so much if she's so… stew…ish… stew-y?"

"'Cause she's useful," Wrath sounded almost hurt, as though her mention demeaned his own existence, "She looks after what's left of the Philosopher's Stone."

"Interesting," Alphonse mumbled his thought aloud. He'd always assumed that Dante either had the stone on her, or stashed it somewhere. "How much is left?"

"I dunno, I can't see how much is there."

Al looked down at his feet as he trudged through a mix of grass and mud, fallen leaves, and broken tree branches along the unmarked path the pair took. The longer they walked in the drizzle, the louder the boys' feet squished into the earth.

"How come you can't see how much stone is left? Dante won't show it to you?" Al couldn't get his mind off the idea.

"It's still in Gluttony's stomach," the half-mechanical creature shrugged.

Stopping, Al reached out and sharply grabbed Wrath at his good arm, "Gluttony? He's still alive!" What a terrifying prospect. Izumi had told Alphonse about all the homunculi as best she could, and Gluttony seemed to be the least desirable one he wanted to meet. _He_ was gross.

"Oh no, Gluttony's not alive anymore," again, Wrath dumbfounded the Elric beneath the weeping grey sky with a casual response in a profound exchange of words, "but the stone is still in his stomach."

"I'm so confused," Al's helpless thoughts fell onto his lips once more. He wasn't sure which one was less desirable, Gluttony alive with the Philosopher's Stone in his stomach, or Dante keeping Gluttony's dead corpse around because the Philosopher's Stone was in it. Al wondered if that stunk. He shuddered and hoped she'd mummified him or something. Rolling the thoughts off his shoulders, the hooded Elric found another question to pose, "How did Dante get the Philosopher's Stone? I thought I had it all."

"Gluttony ate some," Wrath toddled along side Alphonse again, much happier to converse when the topic wasn't Aisa, "so there was some in his stomach when Dante took him apart, and that's how she got it out."

Al's brow rose, "… took him apart?" Lovely, that meant he wasn't a corpse and he was in pieces. That was a bit more disgusting than the thought of keeping around a homunculus corpse. "You know what… I think I've had enough details on that," the young Elric concluded, "and now Aisa looks after it… the, uh, dismembered stomach parts with the Philosopher's Stone?" That certainly qualified as gross.

"Yup."

There was that tone in Wrath's voice again at the mention of Aisa. Perhaps it was the fact Aisa was in charge of Gluttony's remains that set the creature at odds with her.

"Aisa makes the red stones, so I have to be nice to her or she won't give me any," Wrath continued to walk, scraping his bare feet into the muddy mix of woodland soil, "don't tell anyone I called her gross, okay?"

An unforeseen shot of adrenaline widened the young Elric's eyes, "How does she make red stones?"

"I don't know," the golem shrugged, "she just does, and Dante gets them from her."

"Okay…" again the razor's edge of Dante began to threaten Alphonse, and he found his pace slowing suddenly, "Dante just gets creepier the more you talk about her. No wonder my dad left her."

Wrath suddenly shivered, shaking his body of a disturbing memory, "When Dante killed your dad, that baby screamed so loud, I thought my head would explode."

The verbal bomb affixed Alphonse's feet to the muddy soil, "Dante did what?"

The purple eyes of the homunculus child returned to the Elric's vision, "Dante killed Hohenheim. She broke the bonds between his mind, body, and soul, and shoved him at the Gate. He died; the Gate killed him."

Al's mind stumbled. Dante killed his dad? When? But… that didn't make sense. His dad was on the other side of the Gate… somehow. Brigitte knew his dad; she'd written his name, and described him. Alphonse folded his arms as he thought – something wasn't right. Dante had broken the bonds that held his father's existence together. That action took his father to the Gate. But, instead of killing him, did that action send him beyond the Gate to Brigitte? How else would he have gotten there if that wasn't it? Al's eyes shifted with his thoughts.

Dante didn't know that.

Dante had no idea that his father was beyond the Gate; she thought he was dead. She thought going beyond the Gate was by sacrificing yourself to the Gate like his brother had done. The youngest Elric's eyes widened at the realization. So, if two great alchemists were on the other side of the Gate, and they had all this incredible information at their disposal, but neither one of them came home, it was because… their bonds had been broken?

Al's brow began to stitch together. No bonds meant no alchemy. Could that be it?

Like a string of dominoes falling freely, a weight released from Alphonse's chest and a coherent thought formed in his mind's eye clear as day. That was it. It made sense. That was one of the keys that was missing. The bonds had to be broken to cross the Gate. If his dad had bonds, then he would perform alchemy and come home – Alphonse wanted to believe that with all his heart. If his brother was on the other side and had his bonds, he would definitely perform alchemy and come home – Alphonse knew that with all his heart. But, if their bonds were broken, both of them would be stuck beyond the Gate, because alchemy was needed to get to the Gate.

That was the problem then. Alchemy wasn't possible for his father or brother because their bonds were broken.

"… That's the problem, then…"

"What is?" Wrath asked, confused by the expression on his travel companion.

"Nothing," Alphonse's responded quickly, before calming his actions and words, "nothing at all, I was just thinking."

* * *

Sometimes, waking up was like getting a flashlight shone in your face, Edward concluded. Sleep was a black pit of nothing, not a place where dreams and aspirations could be cultivated, explored, or nurtured. It ended up serving the function of 'an escape' from reality. Although dreams were intended to be an escape, the blank hours of sleep ultimately served the same purpose – you escaped from _everything_. So, when you rose from the black pit of nothing, it was like falling into polluted light, especially when it was someone unwillingly waking you.

After the ump-teenth whisper of his name, Ed cracked an eye open in the early morning hours. He couldn't find the energy to make a disgruntled face in response to the far too delighted expression Winry wore.

"What do you want?" he shut his eyes again, pulling his sheets up tight around his neck.

"It's Christmas morning," she bubbled.

Taking an annoyed glance around the room, Ed buried his face in his pillow, "I hate my dad so much right now."

"Get up you miserable lump," Winry snatched the pillow out from under his head.

"It's Sunday, and early on a Sunday. Go away," Ed pulled his covers up over his head and curled up, "get out of my room. I don't barge into your room when you're sleeping."

"I'd beat you senseless if you did!" wielding the pillow like a weapon for a few strikes over his head and shoulders, Winry eventually dropped it on his head and marched to the door, "I'm supposed to tell you to get downstairs in the next few minutes, or your dad will come up and fetch you."

The body beneath the white sheets deflated as her footsteps faded, and a grumble incoherently rose up in its place. A few deep breaths later, Ed decided he'd better haul himself out of bed rather than wait for his father to take pleasure in doing so. Sitting up and sliding over to the side of the bed, Ed put his left leg on, patted down his untied hair, and began to drag himself lazily towards the door. He paused in the entry way, listening for the sounds of people on the lower floor. Hearing both his father and Winry chatter away down below, Ed turned back into his room and poked his head in the closet. Rather than taking a robe or a change of shirt, he grabbed a round hat box from a brown paper bag and abruptly left his room.

By the time Ed had made his way downstairs, the box was gone from his possession, and he stomped his way into the room with the tree dressed in tacky ornaments and flickering candles. Ed grumbled as he sat down on the sofa.

"Could you at least pretend like you care?" Winry folded her arms, sitting opposite to him. Ed continued to grumble incoherently, dumping his head to the side of the seat. Choosing to ignore him, Winry wiggled herself up straight and gave her attention to Ed's father, "So, how does this work?"

Hohenheim gave a shrug, amused at how different her reaction was compared to his son, "Kind of like a birthday. I give you a gift, you open your gift, we eat breakfast, have a relaxing afternoon, and then I cook a magnificent dinner." The father gave himself a nod for the day's master plan, before re-involving his son into the event. A thin, rectangular box was produced and handed to him, "Edward, you get to open your gift first."

"Swell," he slurred, eyeballing Winry as she gave him a warning glance for his behaviour. Taking the box, Ed put it down in his lap. How the hell was he supposed to do this with one hand? A scowl crawled through him as he turned the box over, slipping a finger into an open slit in the wrapping. Winry reached out and held the end of the box while Ed ripped it free of the paper. Carelessly dumping the waste to the floor, he returned the box to his lap and flipped up the lid. A sudden change in expression hit him that surprised Winry and seemed to thoroughly satisfy his father.

Ed pulled out a deep red, long-sleeved dress shirt. His eyes slit suspiciously, "… People don't make stuff in this colour." Crap, why did his dad have to go and find him something in a colour that he liked? At least dress shirt fabrics were kinda… no, this one actually felt like quality fabric. The stitching was excellent and the buttoning was professional. He spoke his next absent thought aloud with the curious twist of an eyebrow, "This is a really nice shirt…"

"I'm glad you like it," his father nodded, "And Winry," Hohenheim switched attention to her before Ed had the opportunity to draw his thoughts out further. Reaching behind himself, the father produced a long, thin, cylindrical object, bound with a red ribbon and curled bow, "I hope this suffices."

Fascinated with what Winry could only describe as a 'scroll', she took the object from Hohenheim and slid the bow off. With her hands careful at the edge, Winry began to unroll the sheet. Both Ed and his father watched her intrigued reaction begin to explode.

"… Oh… my… god…" Winry gaped, unraveling it further, discovering there was more than one sheet wrapped up in this bundle, "what is this?"

"It's the blueprints for a Bristol Tourer T28 biplane," Hohenheim's smile brimmed.

Edward gawked at his father, not sure if he was reacting at what his dad had found for Winry, or because the old man had sounded excessively smug about it.

"Oh my god…" Winry's wide eyes raced around the sheet, silent for a moment as she frantically went through papers, "Oh my god… this is the single most awesome schematic I have ever seen in my entire life," she gripped one of the curling sheets tight in her hands at both ends, "it's a thousand times better than anything I've found in Germany," with sharp snaps of her wrists, Winry dropped the sheets to her knees, "WHERE did you find this?"

"I picked it up when I was out visiting with Charles when we were still in England," Hohenheim's eyes drifted up as he recalled the memory, "I chatted things up with an executive and wound up with that. Since the war ended, England has done a fair bit more with air plane technology than Germany has."

Darting to her feet, Winry scrambled around the table, schematic in hand, and tried to hug the life out of the old father, "This is so awesome, you have no idea! Thank you thank you thank you!"

"I'm glad you like it," he beamed, watching in astonishment as the girl suddenly flew away from him, and blew out of the room.

Ed hopped up to his knees on the seat as she ran by, "Where are you going?"

"My room!" she yelled back, her feet thundering up the stairs, "This needs studying! Don't you dare think for one second I can't make a sexy mechanical beast like this roar," her voice vanished into the upper floor.

Both Hohenheim and Edward looked to the ceiling, hearing the girl trample the hallway floor and clatter into her room.

"Good job," Ed nodded, sitting back down properly, "now we'll never see her again."

Hohenheim laughed before looking at the ceiling again as the noise from above went quiet.

"And now she's seizing up on the ground from the overload," Ed stretched his arm and pushed to his feet, "Or studying. I'm going to go lay back down."

"Alright," his father gave a wave to him, dismissing him from the room, "have a good nap."

Ed snatched his boxed shirt up and dragged himself to the upper floor. At the top of the staircase, he paused, listening for signs of life in the upper floor locked in silence. There was nothing. He thought for a moment to see if Winry was either studying or seizing up on the floor, but he decided that an intrusion into the joyous world of mechanics would definitely prevent him from sleeping. Ed returned to his room, and dumped himself back in bed without bothering to detach the fake leg. He threw the sheets over his head and welcomed the blissful sanctuary of sleep back into his room. The peace and quiet of the dark void entered his mind, but the dampened sound of feet wrapped in stockings swept everything away.

"Get out of my room, Winry," Ed grumbled.

"Where did you get this?" she asked quietly, sitting down on the side of his bed.

Without any visual acknowledgement of the item she questioned, he answered flatly, "Nowhere. I asked the tailor's wife if she could make it when I took my pants in. She does a craft thing once in a while for carnivals and fairs."

"… Why?" her words quieter still, "I thought you didn't get people Christmas gifts."

Ed grumbled into his pillow and pushed his sheets away. Begrudgingly, he swung his legs out over the side of the bed, and stood up again. Without another word to Winry, Ed went to his dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Tossing a few things aside, links of a silver chain brushed together as he produced the replica of his silver pocket watch from the drawer, "I haven't shown you this, have I?"

"Ed…" Winry's attention became entranced by the object.

Walking back over to the bed, he placed the watch carefully down in her hands, "Dad gave it to me for my second Christmas here. He, um…" Ed sat down on the bed next to her, "said it was good to have a reminder of home."

With a pinch of the button at the watch's side, the lid flipped open. The second hand ticked away stiffly. On the surface, it was the same watch, but Winry was certain it did not have the same ticking sound that the original had. Edward watched as she ran her thumb through the empty lid, where no date had been re-written. With the snap of her hand, the watch closed again, and Winry turned it over to examine the back.

"Dad had it custom made in London," Ed reached out and took the watch back from her, "so, I have this, and you can have that."

From her lap, Winry picked up the raggedy doll that had been left in a hat box on her bed. Pale burlap had been sewn together and decorated with lazy brown yarn for hair and solid black buttons for eyes. It smiled happily at anyone who looked its way. Winry's fingers ran along the bottom hem of the pink fabric dress the doll wore and eyed the matching bow in its hair. There were subtle differences in it, because the original was impossible to recreate, but for what it was meant to be, it was just like the one she had on her dresser at home.

"She's cute, thank you."

Ed frazzled a bit at the shaky tone of her voice, "Don't start crying on me, that poor doll will be 0 for 2 if you do. She's too happy for you to be crying," he rumbled a disgruntled noise through his chest, "and Dad'll kill me if you cried on Christmas Day."

"I don't see any tears, do you!" Winry protested, her words defiant. She turned the doll over in her hands again. She laughed a little for no explainable reason, placing the doll back down in her lap. She gave a sigh before wrapping a smile around her face, "You should come see these blueprints on my floor, they are _awesome_."

"No…" Ed's expression pinched, his eyes shifting to the side, "I think I should go back to bed."

"No, I think after making me put up with weeks and weeks of your alchemy prattle, you can come look at these blueprints with me," she held Edward dangerously at the end of her pointed stare, "they . ARE . _awesome ._"

There was really no escape from this and Ed knew it. He wished he could throw a tantrum like a five-year-old; how come _nobody_ ever let him sleep through Christmas Day?

* * *

Alphonse restlessly buried his cheek into his knapsack. It was lumpy and hard, with scattered soft points that didn't seem to make up for the fact it was lumpy _and_ hard. The bag was a lousy pillow to sleep on.

Al's dreams were always something fleeting: his childhood, his future, his family as a whole, his family as himself with his brother and Winry. He'd dreamt once that he and his father were scientists in arms. He'd dreamt up what his whole family would have looked like in five or ten year's time. It was always family – the family he'd lost, like some unhealthy obsession with impossible things. Occasionally, after he woke up, he wondered how he'd manage to dream up such an amicable personality for his father, since all he had to go by were pictures, people's descriptions, and his brother's bitter hatred. All his dreams were impossible. He'd wake up, and they would be gone again. His dreams didn't leave him feeling particularly miserable, since he hardly remembered them the next morning, but he knew they'd happened.

Within this contrived dream, within a house that no longer stood, with a family that no longer existed around him, an additional voice fell down the stairwell. The voice made mention about good timing, and a pair of eyes looked over to him… to everyone. Powerful eyes on such a recognizable, familiar face cast over him.

At first, the feeling was warm, but like a raging matador, a shadow grew over him – thick and dark. It hid the light behind fear. What a terrifying sensation. Al shivered, and woke up with a start.

"Alphonse Elric…" heavy words drew out.

The boy's eyes shot wide, alarm bells raging in his ears, not having to turn over to know who spoke.

"What the hell do you think you are DOING?" Izumi's words thundered down over him in the middle of the night. Reaching down for a fist full of the front of the boy's shirt, she lurched him off the ground and slammed him against the trunk of the tree he'd rested beneath, "I'm going to break your kneecaps right here and now, and haul your ass back to Central."

Waking up had never been so easy. Alphonse stared back at her, and opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him.

"I don't want to hear it!" the raging teacher put a little more pressure into the hand she used to hold him where he hung, flipping her eyes to Wrath momentarily as the creature awoke, "you ran off with Wrath, to do who knows what, someplace that I'm pretty sure we know, without telling anyone. There's not a whole lot you can say right now that is going to justify this."

"But Dante said she'd hurt Winry!" Al squeaked in protest, "I can't let her do that!"

The woman's face boiled red, "WITHOUT ASKING FO—"

Alphonse was dropped to his feet as Izumi's hand snapped to her mouth. The violent lurch of her insides turned her away. Mentally pinned against the tree still, the young Elric watched his teacher bend over and try to recover herself. This always made him shiver, because of the red stain it left in her hand. When he'd been training with her, she hadn't told them why; but once the truth was lost in the memories of armoured Alphonse, she'd told him 'again' for the first time. He was almost certain it hurt her more to talk about it, than it hurt each time the blood came to her mouth. He actually hadn't seen her react in some time, but whether or not she was hiding it from him, or it had simply improved, wasn't something Al knew for certain.

As he waited, Alphonse couldn't explain why he wasn't sorry for taking off. He was sorry he hadn't been able to include her, but he wasn't sorry for what he'd done. Strangely, he felt guilty for being happy she'd found out and came after him. His mind seemed to be turning into a bundle of knots with his actions.

"Sensei…" he started, watching his teacher gather herself, "Dante said if I told anyone, she'd kill Winry," Al held himself firm where he stood, "and I might have also lost a way to help my brother too. I don't want that."

"And it didn't occur to you that you were being played?" the teacher cleared her throat, standing up tall.

"Yes," Al's shoulder remained a companion to the tree trunk, watching his teacher turn to him again, "it did."

Izumi shook her head, looking up through the canopy of tree branches as she folded her arms. The stars were not out tonight, just the clouds, "And you thought it was a good idea to run away with _Wrath?_ Without anyone else at all?"

"It wasn't a good idea," Al protested, fight rising in his voice, "it was a really stupid idea, but Dante wanted to see me, and only me, or she'd hurt Winry and maybe make things worse for getting my brother if I didn't act, so I made a choice," the boy's words rose with each statement he continued to make, "Winry has nothing to do with any of this. She's a country girl who makes AutoMail. Dante has no right to involve her like this. My brother is beyond the Gate, so she can't physically hurt him, but she can hurt Winry. She can make her an example. That's not fair, Sensei. I don't want that to be my fault because I was scared."

The teacher's shoulders sagged with the release of air from her lungs. One of her hands began to run though her tied hair.

"If Dante wants to see me, for whatever reason, then I'd rather she hold her conversations directly with me, than use Winry as bait."

"Alphonse," Izumi's words had lost their sharpened edge. With a disgruntled sigh, she brushed her hands over her thighs before she crouched down in front of the youngest Elric, "if… _if_ Dante even has Winry—"

"Who else would?" Al fought back insistently.

Izumi rolled her eyes at the interruption and grabbed Al by his wrists. Her words stiffened, "If Dante has Winry, one of two things is going to happen: she'll bait you and keep you both, or she'll bait you and kill Winry to show her power."

Al's fists clenched, "I'll find a way to make her let Winry go. I'll force her to, or I'll save Winry, or something," he stiffened his arms and shoulders when his teacher's grip tightened, "no one's helping her and someone has to. Then, I'll find a way beyond the Gate and help my brother too."

"No, you won't, Al. No matter how much you want it, how good your intentions are, and how much you think you can make it happen, it won't happen that way," The brash behaviour akin to his brother was causing Al to sacrifice his own grounded, solid strengths.

His experiences, his life lessons, all the things that had taught him how cruel the world was since he and his brother had attempted to transmute their mother had been taken from him. No matter how things had gone since they'd left Rizembool, it no way made up for life experience lost. The understanding of harsh reality from the perspective of someone locked in the body of a hollow suit of armour no longer existed. Alphonse Elric's view of the world was still riddled with innocence and abundant childish hope – things that fade away only as time ages you and you begin see the world.

"It won't work that way. No matter how good your intentions are, a madman won't play by your rules no matter how you arrange it," Izumi sighed, not sure how else she could emphasize it without beating it into him, "You're a smart kid, but your brother acts without thinking, you don't. Don't make me break your legs to teach you that, because as much as you might deserve it, I don't want to do that to you right now."

"What else am I supposed to do, Sensei? You want me to go back?" the boy's protest pleaded with her while his eyes ran around in dismay, "I can't just risk this…"

Izumi looked down to the earth below her feet in thought. What a disgusting ultimatum Dante had trapped a child in. She ground her teeth together, solidifying her grip at Al's wrists, "You ask for my help, and we'll go see what Dante wants."

Al looked back at her, processing the answer, "What happens if… with Winry…"

"WRATH!" Izumi roared, her eyes suddenly narrow. She startled Al with her voice. Her gaze turned to the homunculus who'd sat quietly through the entire ordeal, "Did Dante tell you where to find us?"

"No…" the creature twisted his face, "she didn't know where you were. And you were hard to find!" Wrath chirped at the pair like the difficulties he'd had finding them was their fault, "she thought you might be dead, but sent me to look for you anyways."

A grumble managed its way through Izumi and she roughed a hand through Alphonse's hair, "Then she doesn't know where we are. She can't spy on us if she doesn't know where to look. You were a messenger sent out to lure evidence back if we were still kicking," her hand smoothed out the mess she'd made of Al's hair, "Does Dante have Winry?"

"I dunno," he tilted his head like a lost animal, "I haven't seen her."

That was an insufficient answer. Izumi frowned, "What has she said about Winry?"

The creature continued to seem slightly detached from the present, humming to himself as he thought over an answer, "Nothing, just that she had to talk to Alphonse about her," Wrath dug his toes into the softened dirt at his feet, "but, she didn't invite you. You're not welcome."

Izumi's eyebrows peaked, unimpressed by the homunculus' statement, "Well, that's too bad, isn't it? That woman's going to have to entertain me too."

"Sensei," a sudden jolt hit Alphonse at the mention of 'woman', and he drew out information passed along by Wrath earlier, "Dante is using Nina now."

The teacher's raised eyebrows fell at the statement, "Figures…" she curled her upper lip in disgust.

* * *

For a fleeting moment, Ed considered folding his arms and frowning, but he was painfully aware that the right arm he needed was laying on the tabletop before him. What a wreck this thing was to look at. Why hadn't he thrown it out? He'd been so proud of it when they'd finished it, and damn did it hurt when it had been attached. Hurt a hell of a lot more coming off. The points on his body where the screws had once held it on had left scars, and seemed a little tender to the touch sometimes – he wondered if he could even attach a second one. A passing thought told him that he could always just get along without it. He hadn't had a right arm at all in England when he'd lived there, and he'd pretty much figured out how to manage with only the one arm. Was it worth the headache, he asked himself, or were there better things to focus on?

A loss of focus struck to remind Ed of a reoccurring headache that reminded him how he'd wound up in the situation where he'd eventually lost that arm. He'd been able to detach himself from the memory because he'd gone to England so quickly afterwards. Now he'd returned, and here this thing was. He stared at the metallic remains resulting from a perplexing moment months ago, after he'd walked away from Hess, when a voice spoke his name, and a large hand took hold of his right shoulder. Before he could even turn around or make a sound, a strong, muscular second hand with a damp cloth took hold of his face making him unable to…

"Edward?" Hohenheim put a hand down over his unmoving son's right shoulder space.

The frozen place Ed had become lost in shattered when he jumped and lurched away from his father, crashing into the table that his arm rattled around on. He spun around sharply, eyes flown wide, only to catch himself and stop entirely as his father slowly pulled his hand back with a very concerned look to his eye.

"Hi," Edward spoke abruptly, frantically untangling himself from the moment.

"Hi…" Hohenheim replied cautiously, "is everything alright?"

"What the hell are you doing sneaking up to someone in their own room?" swiftly, Ed moved away from the table to the dresser and chair hidden beneath shirts and ties, "don't you ever knock?"

The father's expression wrinkled, knowing he had knocked on the open doorframe and Ed had been unresponsive. He chose to not make an issue out of it, "The shirt fits well?"

Ed blinked down to the red shirt he wore, "Yeah, its good. Thanks."

Hohenheim grinned, sliding his hands into his pockets, "Red is a good colour for you."

"Always has been," smirking, Ed looked into the mirror propped up atop the dresser, "Winry and I were talking about taking measurements of the Thule hall on Thursday after the meeting. Map the whole area; get the best measurements that we can of the room, the height of the ceiling, distances from the edge of the circle to the walls. There might be something important in the numbers that enclose the circle in the room. Maybe an adjustment to the layout of the structure will have an effect on how the circle behaves."

"Sounds like a good idea," Hohenheim nodded, sounding oddly detached from Edward's conversation. He walked over to the mess of shirts and ties laid out over the back of the wooden chair and began to finger through the pile.

"I was thinking that if the stone room was smaller, and you encase things a little tighter, you might be able to use some of the bounce-back energy that goes to the sigil when someone's at the Gate to force a weak connection – just enough to send something like a message in a bottle back home," Ed tilted his head at himself in the mirror, pulling his chin up to eye his jaw line as he spoke, "then they'd at least know we're here and trying."

Continually nodding his approval, Hohenheim took a few items from the back of the chair and draped them over his left arm. Looking ahead, he distantly addressed Ed's reflection in the mirror, "That's a good idea."

Watching his father stand behind him in the mirror with moderate interest imprinted on his face, Ed's thought-filled expression slowly clouded over, "… What?"

"What-what?" his father replied.

The bridge of Ed's nose wrinkled, "You've got that annoying face on."

"Oh," Hohenheim grinned, "you mean my father face?"

Ed's right eye twitched, "Yeah, take it off."

Hohenheim found himself unable to withhold the chuckle he gave to Ed. Standing behind his left shoulder, he placed a strong right hand down over the back of his son's neck as he motioned to the clothing strung over his arm, "Edward, did you _really_ shrink the laundry?"

"Oh for the love of…" Ed's voice burst as he spun to face the old man, "can't you people just let that die! It's not like I shrank _your_ clothes, and I didn't even shrink them that much! I had the hem let out on my pants and they're fine now! And I can roll up my shirt sleeve, it's not like anyone's noticing that when I'm missing one arm."

"Calm down," the father's words were bemused and jovial. Taking a black tie from the collection hung over his arm, Hohenheim slipped the loop over his sons head. He watched, amused, as Ed's eyes held him in contempt, but didn't stop him. Slipping the ring of the tie under the younger man's red collar, Hohenheim did up the top button on Edward's shirt and slipped the knot of the tie up tight to his neck. Standing a step back, Hohenheim looked his son over with an inquisitive stare, careful not to focus on how the harsh appearance was now filling with confusion. Taking a hand and putting it to Ed's shoulder, the father spun him around to face the mirror again.

Ed's expression floated in a flood of confusion, his mouth open a crack as he curiously examined his reflection in the mirror, "… What?"

"Your pants didn't shrink," Hohenheim's hand patted down firmly, high at the centre of Edward's back, "it was a growth spurt."

Ed's jaw fell ajar, "_WHAT?_"

The father laughed at the reaction.

Spinning around, Ed's absolutely baffled reaction filled the bedroom, "You can't be serious? I'm going to be twenty-two in a couple of weeks. Men don't get growth spurts when they're nearly twenty-two."

"And boys don't get their first growth spurt when they're seventeen either," Hohenheim's amused reaction carried on, trailing along behind him like a talon drifting in the wind, "I'm assuming you didn't grow very much from the time you first encountered the Gate until you crossed it. Perhaps what you'd done locked you down for some reason, and now that you're here you have years of catching up to do."

Somewhat unsuccessful at his attempt to reset his gaping response, Ed turned back to his reflection in the mirror. He narrowed an eye at himself; there had been fleeting moments at home when he'd gotten a little taller, always wishing he'd grow further, but never noticing anything substantial for height change before crossing the Gate, "… that makes sense, you could be right."

Hohenheim's brow lifted like a weightless feather; he took his dangling amusement and turned to leave the room. And though he'd had every intention of leaving at that point, his attention became entirely enraptured by the sudden explosion that took over Edward.

"AW SHIT!" Ed's left hand slapped to his mouth, eyes cautiously growing wide as though he'd forgotten something dreadfully important. His hand slipped up into his hair, lifting the overgrown bangs from his face, "she was right, it is my fault."

"Pardon?" the father's expression fell blank.

Ed tapped the toes of his constructed left leg against the floor, "I kept asking Winry to fix it cause I was limping. I kept telling her she'd done something wrong and she kept saying it was my fault somehow."

"You've seemed to be walking alright recently," Hohenheim tried to recall if he'd seen Ed with a limp – clearly recalling how hard it was to keep him on two even legs when he had been seventeen and eighteen, "did you put a sock in the socket?"

The son's eyes cut across the room sharply and became buried in a corner. Ed's jaw tightened, "She's going to kill me."

With a hand to his forehead and a laugh in his voice, Hohenheim turned and left the room.

* * *

The morning sunlight vanished when Wrath, Izumi and Alphonse sank below the soil, and emerged at a vantage point high above the Empty City. Alphonse held his lower lip in his teeth as he looked over the crime lost in the earth. Roze had told them what she knew of this place and what its purpose had been. Dante had been so arrogant with Roze, and as she tried to destroy the life of the survivor from Lior, she had preened and gloated about so many of her life's accomplishments. She had outright told the young woman, still somewhat coherent at that point, what had happened to the city. It was one of the tactics Dante used to manipulate Roze into submission, and she had never lost a host candidate before. The ancient monster had no fear of the things she divulged, since they would be lost as Roze's existence crumbled.

But Roze still stood with Ed when all was said and done; Dante had ran.

It was Ed who was responsible for the two fine legs Roze had to tremble within the city, overpowered by the glow of a transmutation that exchanged one life for another. It had lit the entire city beneath the earth brighter than the sun could have on the best of days. Roze said Ed had sent her on ahead, but she ran back, her baby tucked in her arms, and pounded on the doors of the building that Ed had locked. When she finally managed to get in, it was Alphonse she'd found unconscious on the floor, and Ed was nowhere to be seen. Roze hadn't known that the boy who remained was Al until she'd woken him and he spoke.

From his perspective, Alphonse's existence transitioned smoothly between the terrifying feeling of a transmutation gone wrong, and the profound sense of 'wrong' he'd felt as he woke up on that floor. He was never quite able to shake that feeling.

As Al looked out into this cityscape once again, it was as though all the wrongs he'd felt for so long had become embodied in the Empty City.

"This whole city died for the first Philosopher's Stone," Alphonse Elric's words rolled out smoothly, "it was the first victim of our world's greatest sins." He began to chew on his lower lip.

"It's a graveyard without bones," Izumi's bitter words added, "without evidence, without life, without proof of anything having existed. It's an abomination."

"Dante liked the city," Wrath commented, "but it was Hohenheim who buried it."

Alphonse's lower lip slid from his teeth, he stepped away from the vantage point, and began the decent into the nameless graveyard without another word. Izumi followed. Her harsh eyes held Wrath, a golem of rage drained of its fuel, in contempt as he followed behind her. The decent was made silently.

Although she had gone to see, and then seal, the Empty City after Roze and Al had escaped, she had not ventured down to the 'street level'. Izumi did not want to be here. To her, this place represented everything that the Gate had terrified her with. Everything.

Walking silently down a cobblestone path that lay buried in nearly five hundred years of dust, the tracks that had been made by the few visitors in the last year had remained untouched. There was no wind to blow them away and no caretaker to smooth things over; they were imprints in history. There was a set of unmarred boot tracks that no one needed to be told belonged to Edward Elric.

"Where do we find Dante?" Izumi finally cut the silence, half expecting her voice to echo within the vacant city.

"In the ballroom," it was Al answered, "that's where I woke up."

"I don't see any children's footprints," the teacher's eyes carried along the path they walked, "there must be another entrance." Her attention shifted to Wrath; he'd gone silent since they'd descended, "Is there another entrance, Wrath?"

The young homunculus continued to walk as though he'd never been addressed.

Al looked to Wrath as well, glancing up to his teacher as a scowl began to set in, "Wrath, there's more than just that entrance to the city, right?"

"Uh-huh," he responded half heartedly, not looking at Al as he spoke.

"Do you know where they are?" Al pushed for an answer.

"Some of them."

Izumi and Al exchanged a concerned look, wordlessly acknowledging that the change in Wrath's disposition was due to this world that Dante coveted. They kept walking.

Al's eyes flickered up to the earth hanging above their heads, his gaze tracing the outline of the rooftops of the Empty City, creating a skyline in his mind. His pace slowed. Alphonse looked around the hollowed earth that entombed a heinous crime, eyes and ears searching a ghost town for signs of life beyond their own.

Quiet words moved through the young Elric's lips, "No one even knew if the stone was real back then. I can't imagine being so greedy and selfish that you'd sacrifice thousands of people's lives to obtain something that you couldn't even confirm existed. It goes against everything you're taught as an alchemist. I can't imagine being so…" he struggled to find the word he wanted, but nothing sufficed, and Alphonse settled on another, "… so inhuman."

"But your dad and Dante _did_ create it here," Wrath emphasized.

Every link made between this atrocity and his father stabbed through Alphonse at his core. It enraged him. It was obvious that it had been his father who'd done these things; he knew it had been his father, but his mother wouldn't have loved someone like this. He'd changed. This person and that person had changed, and referring to them as the same person felt beyond wrong.

Al's free hand clenched, "What would they need it for in the first place? To prolong their lives? Is that what they wanted? Why would they want to do that?" he couldn't fathom the motivation, "There are other myths in alchemy better than the Philosopher's Stone that can be used to prolong your life."

"Enough Al," Izumi tried to stop the questions, and she took his hand.

"You tried to transmute your mom, didn't you?" Wrath asked in return, as though the question were no more important than asking what was for dinner.

The young Elric felt his hand squeezed by his teacher as he gave a confession of sin, "I did, yes."

Wrath's footsteps stopped, "And you tried to transmute me, right?"

Though she stopped, Izumi did not respond, her body stiff as she looked over the broken homunculus, feeling Alphonse squeeze her hand in return.

Wrath appeared to take her silence as a 'yes', and behaved indifferent to the entire concept, "Dante and Hohenheim tried to resurrect their son, that's why they needed the Philosopher's Stone."

"Their son?" Al repeated, looking up at Izumi, whose eyes could have killed the homunculus where he stood. Frantically, Al looked back to Wrath, before returning his attention to his teacher, "did you know this?"

"Yes," the look in the woman's eyes continued to be deadly. She wished she had the power to silence Wrath or make his words untrue. The more Al, or anyone, learnt about his father's history, the more Al's sense of his own family would rot away, and both brothers had a profound sense of family, "Roze told me. But, I didn't know if it was true or not." She wanted it not to be.

"It was just a son," spoken like it was just words. Wrath gave an affirmative nod to his own statement, looking up to the rooftops of the empty city around them, "some kind of illness killed him, I think."

Al spat out a morbid curious question that Izumi wished he had not asked, and did not want to know, "What was his name?"

Within the stale air of a forgotten point in time, there was a long, sufferable moment of pause before Wrath responded, "I don't know."

Al was far less hesitant to voice his words than Wrath or Izumi seemed to be. His tongue ran from him with reckless abandon, "If my dad and Dante mastered alchemy to bring back someone, and they had the Philosopher's Stone, then they succeeded?"

"No, Alphonse Elric, your information is incorrect."

The little voice with big words called out from down the dusty, abandoned street. With a quick flash of movement, Izumi had a hold of Al by his upper arm, forcefully positioning him behind her. Al peered out from around his teacher, unable to fight away from her hold. In the silence of their existence, the soft clap of dress shoes echoed in the thick layer of time that hid the true face of this forgotten world.

Dante narrowed her childish eyes at the people ahead of her, "Oh, you ignorant woman, calm down," she shook Nina's head as she walked, words dripping with apathy as her pigtails fanning out over her shoulder, "I didn't think Alphonse would be able to get here without you, so I'm quite prepared to see this. But, did you at least try, Al?"

He didn't answer. Al glanced to the hand at his arm that tightened the closer she moved. There was something unusually terrifying about how his teacher stood between him and this tiny girl; Izumi was fiercely defiant and uncharacteristically frightened.

Dante's approach stopped, her sweet smile falling to Wrath who seemed to shy away like a beaten child. Her attention returned to her guests once Wrath's response satisfied her.

"No," she again answered the prior question, "Alphonse Elric, _Envy_ was born before the Philosopher's Stone was."

**

* * *

To Be Continued…  
**

* * *

A/N –Grrr... it seems that when I uploaded the story, all of my instances of "exclamation point + question mark" into just "!". I tried to correct it... and it was like "NO, you can't do that". It could have at least turned them into just question marks for me :x I hope I found them all.

I'd like to think, that when left to his own devices, without the threat of public display, embarrassment, or humiliation, Ed is capable of being very sweet. And I keep making reference to Ed's birthday being soon… FMA1 always lead me to believe Ed was a January baby (based on dates they'd given and a huge amount of wasted time-er _research_ I'd done, back when I had the time to do that 8D).

Al's taken a lot of what Wrath has had to say as truths. Wrath, minus red stones, is a lot more amicable, and he simply doesn't realize the impact of everything he says. Al's picked up on this. It's all just words and information to him. Like Wrath is now, he doesn't understand the effect his words have (or have had) on the world or people around him. Dante is aware that Wrath is talkative like this, and she doesn't care. Why? That's for next chapter.

Over the next bit, I'll be reincorporating some quirks I established that differentiated the feeling of Al's side of the Gate to the German side – things like the muted colours, how there was a noticeable absence of taste/smell/hunger, the complete lack of dreams during sleep (which was in this chapter), and the general dreary atmosphere that Ed, Winry and Hohenheim perceive. These things never stopped being there, I just stopped drawing much attention to it.


	32. Envy

Foreword – Using Dante's 'hand clap but no-touch' alchemy trick.

**

* * *

Part XXXII – Chapter 83 – Envy**

* * *

Izumi looked harshly at the ancient devil before them pompously wearing a stolen child's face beneath the ceiling of an artificially lit world buried beneath the earth, concealing and cradling sin after deadly sin.

"Your sin is Envy?" she asked.

"His sin was Envy," Dante replied hotly.

Even with the firm hold his teacher kept on him, Alphonse's voice could still be heard from behind her, "Where's Winry, Dante? Where are you keeping her? I want to know she's safe."

Dante gave a simple shrug of her shoulders, lacing her fingers neatly at her stomach, "Winry's safety is up to you."

"Where _is_ Winry?" Izumi repeated Al's question with a harder edge to her voice.

Annoyance flashed through the eyes that Dante used, and she rolled a frown into her face. Dante allowed seconds to thunder by without acknowledgement of the question, as though she existed beyond the progression of time, before she looked to Wrath again and told him simply, "You may go ask Aisa about your red stones now."

"Yay!" an abundance of childish energy returned to the homunculus as he bounded away.

"Wrath, no!" Al called out. Izumi's grip held firm on the youngest Elric, and Al couldn't follow if he'd tried.

"You've got your retriever well trained," Izumi's eyes slipped back to the child figure, "he seems to fetch pretty well, but does he roll over, heel, and beg, too?"

"You can't tease a dog forever, Izumi, it will eventually bite back," Dante gave a shrug to her statement, disinterest plaguing her tongue, "I throw it a bone once in a while to keep it loyal."

The bridge of Izumi's nose creased with disgust.

Dante's childish voice picked up suddenly, and it was the only thing that had the ability to hold any kind of echo in the underground graveyard, "So, what do you two think of Edward Elric beyond the Gate?"

Both Izumi and Al looked to Dante with a similar carriage of distain. The child's voice had been so happy, so amused, and so delighted to talk about the topic. It teased and insulted them with every syllable. Izumi brow wove together, her lips opening to speak, but Al's voice drew out before hers.

"How do you expect us to get my brother from beyond the Gate if you keep causing problems for us?"

Dante's childish hands fluttered around at her stomach, the pads of her fingers finally drawing together at her chest, "I don't expect you to accomplish that at all, so 'causing you problems' isn't something I care about," her eyes pinched happily with a cheeky grin, before her expression widened again. Dante continued to play her juvenile appearance like a professional artiste, "but, what I do care about is that all of your actions up until this point have shown me you're certain of the same things I am, and _that_ is very important."

"What?" the word was spoken in chorus by Al and Izumi.

A little giggle rose up; a tantalizing giggle that raised the hairs on the arms of people who listened, but ultimately ended with a snort as Dante swept Nina's hair over her shoulders, "You're both so ignorant. Since you're so eagerly set on dealing with me and finding Edward Elric, then you've done nothing but confirm what I was speculating. He _is_, without a doubt, beyond the Gate," the petite body gave a careless wave of her hands to the two of them, tipping her head playfully to the side, "now, if by some chance you actually found out some way to complete that impossible task and fetch Edward, then you'd save me some additional effort."

A quick exchange of glances was made between Izumi and Alphonse.

"Save you some effort with what?" Izumi's heavy question rumbled through the chests of her listeners, "other than actually accessing what's beyond the Gate, how does getting Ed benefit you in any way?"

The demon child just smiled for her former student, and she began to approach. A dark shadow cast into her complexion, highlighting the edges of her smile as it blackened everything else. The light of this world was hers to control, as was the darkness, and the earth that contained them, "You are no longer welcome in this conversation, Izumi."

Dante clapped her hands.

Both alchemists were thrown apart when the ground at their feet heaved upwards between them. A terrifying realization unexpectedly gripped both Izumi and Alphonse for the only moment needed for Dante to split them – she hadn't _touched_ the earth that moved when she'd clapped her hands. Izumi didn't have time to lurch away with Alphonse in her grasp.

"I am not down here today to talk to you, Izumi Curtis," the girl's voice rose, projecting through the streets like a theatre actor with the throw of her hands, gleefully and bitterly childish.

"Al, run!"

Alphonse's breath escaped him as he scrambled on his feet. He couldn't handclap like the other two; that left him with a huge handicap and astoundingly defenseless. From over his shoulder, the collision of tiny flesh palms crashed again. For Alphonse, there was a sudden, terrifying realization that the ground beneath him had neither heaved nor rolled, but had completely vanished. He fell without a chance to scream. The sensation of free-falling through the dark earth overwhelmed his mind – unable to see the width of the cavity he fell through, or how far he would fall. A sick feeling in Al's stomach lurched into his chest, and it remained there when he suddenly hit his back on solid ground, coming to an abrupt halt. Alphonse couldn't explain how he hadn't felt the full impact of hitting the bottom, and that was almost more terrifying than the fall itself.

The place he silently rested in had no light, was cold, and smelt like a dusty mantle had been blown clean. Where was he?

A confusing sound came from the depths of nothing: a baby cried.

A child's handclap was heard again, and Al cringed. When the lanterns of a squarely built corridor lit with flames, Al's eyes exploded wide to swallow the light. Flying up onto his knees, and with a sharp turn over his shoulder, Al came nose to nose with a monster's childish face.

"I _am_ down here today to talk to you, Alphonse Elric," Dante smiled. She turned away happily and walked a few steps down the hall, picking up the baby she called Diana, who lay bundled on the floor.

Al cautiously looked up to the solid cement ceiling he assumed he'd fallen through. His eyes glanced around a tunnel that stretched into more darkness. Was this one of the other entrances? Where did it go? Where did it start from? Al sat back on his knees. The sinking feeling weighing in his stomach was a huge, dead weight. Alphonse startled when Dante was within his personal space again, and he tried to lean away, but she handed him baby Diana. He wouldn't have taken her, except that he was certain Dante would have just let the infant drop if he hadn't.

Dante stood up as straight as she could, lacing her fingers together at her stomach again, casting a sweet smile over the youngest Elric, "Alphonse, why do you believe your brother is beyond the Gate?"

Adjusting the baby he now held, whose cry was a murmur, Al looked up at the petite figure towering over him, "I won't tell you."

"That's fine, you don't have to," she shook her head, more than happy to accept his refusal, "but, by coming here, and everyone's actions to this point, you have shown me that he _is _in that magnificent society beyond the Gate. Thank you for confirming that for me," Dante's smile grew as a look of horror moved through the youngest Elric.

Al balked on his thoughts, "You didn't _know_ he was beyond the Gate?"

"No, I was simply outsourcing a test for your father's theory," Dante shrugged carelessly, "if the results were negative, you wouldn't be here. There's no recorded instance of someone from this side of the Gate actually arriving on the other side, so the method for it is unknown. And since it's apparently possible to take people from beyond the Gate, like our lovely Brigitte, I will thank you for your assistance in my theoretical trials by helping you bring your brother home." She bounced her woven fingers against her stomach gleefully.

"What?" Alphonse's heart raced in his ears and throat; he nearly forgot to breathe, "How are you going to help me?"

Dante giggled at the flustered Elric, "I'm not entirely sure just yet how we're going to accomplish that, I have a few ideas, but you _are_ going to find a way to get your brother home," she spoke the words to him like it was absolute fact he could not dispute, "you've been doing great so far Alphonse, don't stop here."

Through the obstacle course of his poor breathing and pounding heart, Alphonse's thoughts could not find the answer to why on earth Dante was standing before him offering to help bring his brother home, "Why do you want to bring my brother home? I thought you wanted to bridge the gap with the Gate."

"I do," Dante nodded in the poorly lit hallway, "but, that's why I like the charm of your brother; he's so much like your father. He's curious. He seeks knowledge. He will have already sought out things, learnt things that I want, created things unimaginable, and drowned himself in knowledge," Dante tipped her head from side to side playfully in thought, "And yet, for some reason I can't explain, I am having a bitch of a time accessing what's beyond the Gate, and if everything I have said up until now is true – which it seems to be – I cannot explain why he hasn't so much as contacted us," her sweet voice rose, "it means I'm missing something important."

Alphonse bit his lower lip, swallowing his own secrets.

Dante's tiny hands slapped over her knees as she bent in to be nose to nose again with the youngest Elric, "So, when you bring him back for me, I will extract every piece of information in his mind. I will have him tell me every little detail of every thing he's learnt beyond the Gate. I will find out what I am doing wrong, and I will find out what I need to do long before I fully introduce myself to the world beyond the Gate."

Alphonse's jaw slowly began to fall open in disbelief of what he'd just heard, "That's insane, I won't help you do that," he blurted in absolute refusal of Dante's proposal, "you want my brother to come home so you can dissect his mind?"

"Not dissect his mind, extract information from it," Dante corrected, without a rise to her voice. Her smile held firm, and she lifted three fingers for Alphonse to see, "Mind. Body. Soul. I can move souls. I can create bodies. But, the mind? That one is tricky to play with for some reason, but I've been practicing," again, using her childish exterior, Dante pushed out her lower lip and tightened her brow with an excessive pout, "Alphonse, I'm not going to jump head first into a stubborn and unknown world without knowing exactly what I'm dealing with. Did you think I was that arrogant? Did I live this long to only be that arrogant?" the foolish expression vanished and Dante gave a careless sigh to the situation, "everyone's so busy worrying about what's going on in Central, with me, what I'm doing, and how I'm going to ruin everything…" she gave an excited swing of her hips, "Edward Elric's little brother, Hohenheim's youngest son, came to see me of his own volition, because he's the only one who doesn't care about what I've done there. He only wants his brother back, and here's your big chance to get him, Alphonse Elric."

Rising to his feet, the baby wrapped in his arms, Alphonse took a step back, away into the darkness from this demonic child, "I want my brother back, but I'll do that myself. I won't help you."

"Yes, you will," Dante continued to speak in absolutes.

Al's words rose with ferocity, "I will NOT help you!"

A twitch of disinterest towards the protest flickered in her eyes, and Dante clapped her hands.

Alphonse caught the glow of the transmutation circle on the baby's stomach for a moment, before he found himself with an overwhelming urge to scream. He could not for some reason. A sensation hit him like two sledgehammers rammed into his head through his ears, and Alphonse lost his grip on baby Diana. He tried to reach his hands to his head, but couldn't seem to connect. A hundred thousand fragments of knowledge appeared all at once, all unique, and all completely indistinguishable. He couldn't turn away from the blinding sensation; every terrifying snippet of possible knowledge flashed in his face relentlessly, long enough to know they were there, but never long enough to truly understand what they were. The rush was numbing. It made him feel sick. He couldn't make it stop on his own, he couldn't even struggle against the sensation – a gaping hole had been blown open to his mind and he became nothing more than a flesh container overwhelmed with floodwaters. Alphonse fell out of the high when he was released from the ride, and his senses were abruptly returned to him. When the motion settled enough that Alphonse was coherently aware of his own existence again, he dropped to his knees, his hands finally finding his head. He curled over his legs, putting his forehead to a white, sensation-less surface.

Dante looked over to the young Elric who'd been forced to the ground. She watched him, amused by his reaction, before turning around in the white abyss of endless space and looked up at the Gate doors that had swung wide open.

She smiled, putting her hands down on her hips triumphantly, "Yes, you will."

* * *

There were things to do today; people to meet, coffee or tea to be had, conversations to carry on, and a meeting to attend. Hohenheim straightened his tie while looking in the mirror. He thought he might stop by the university, just to drop things off, since he would have some work to get started on for Monday. With the firm jerk of his arms to straighten his sleeves, he left his bedroom. The upstairs hall was lined with a few doors – one that belonged to Edward, which was closed, and the other that belonged to Winry, which was left open. Hohenheim poked his head into her room to see if she was in, noting nothing and no one beyond a wicker basket of laundry in the corner, the blueprints she'd tacked to the wall, an unmade bed, and a pink doll stuck in a crack between her pillow and the headboard of her bed. Hohenheim raised his brow curiously; he hadn't noticed the doll at all before. He walked in and pulled it from the crevice where it was trapped. It was obviously new, no wear on it to note. Turning it over in his hand, he looked for a maker's insignia or stitched tag, and found nothing to identify it at all. He shook his head, put it down on her pillow, and left the room again.

Coming down to the main floor, Hohenheim found Winry at the kitchen table with a cup of soup in hand, bundled up in a sweater, long skirt, heavy socks, and… Hohenheim's shoulders fell… the gaudy French slippers were on her feet.

Rolling his eyes, he entered the kitchen, getting a good morning greeting before he could give one to her first. He'd _thought_ about asking Winry if she'd consider throwing the slippers out, but since they were on her feet, that probably wouldn't happen. Hohenheim placed a few items in the draining board at the sink away in a cupboard, before walking back out into the hall again. Although he had every intention of going to the door and heading out, he turned back to the kitchen with a nagging thought, "Winry, where did the doll on your bed come from?"

"Hm?" she looked up from the soup, "Ed got it for me."

"Did he?" the father lifted his brow. He withheld the 'why' question and substituted it with a statement, "a little pink doll isn't something I see you with."

Winry giggled at the statement, putting her cup down on the table, "I have a doll just like it at home. Ed and Al made it for me when I was little," she tapped her spoon on the side of the cup, "it was their first transmutation."

The father looked off in thought of the statement, "A doll for you?"

"Mmhmm," she dipped her spoon back into the soup to stir it again.

Hohenheim thought the statement over for a moment, wondering how old the boys may have been. Young enough to innocently make a pink doll for a little girl their first project, he assumed. He didn't ask her anything further about it. Although he was curious, for some reason he just couldn't bring himself to ask about that point in time. So, back to the day at hand: people to meet, places to go, and a Thule meeting to attend after all that – the last of the year. Hohenheim left the kitchen space again and turned to the front door, eyeing the collection of shoes on the mat.

His thoughts drifted away again.

What a nice thing for his boys to have done – to have made a doll for the Rockbell's little girl…

"Edward!" Hohenheim's voice bellowed into the house suddenly, as he reached for his boots, "Edward, come out here!"

Ed's voice burst through the house with far more edge to it than his father's had, "Why the hell are you barking orders at me? I'm not your goddamn servant boy. I don't jump at your call!"

"I'm not giving orders," the father's voice boomed back, "just come here."

The upper floor thundered with Ed's footsteps, as did the stairs he pounded on. Hohenheim chuckled as Ed's warpath came to a stop at the junction where the entry hall met the kitchen.

"What is it?" he addressed his father before suddenly turning his attention squarely on Winry at the corner of his eye, "those are mine!"

Winry stretched her legs out under the table, "The floor was cold, and I couldn't find my slippers."

"So, you took mine?" Ed's eye twitched at her.

"Yes," Winry stuck her nose in the air and sipped her coup of soup.

With a subdued laugh at the exchange, Hohenheim reached into the closet for his coat, "Edward, take Winry out for dinner tonight."

"What! She's a slipper thief. No," Ed protested, narrowing an eye, "And that sounds like an order."

"It's a suggestion," his father gave a shake of his coat as he took it from the hanger.

Ed wrinkled his nose. Glaring back he dropped his tone as deep as he could go in mockery of his father, "'Take Winry out for dinner tonight.'" Ed rolled his eyes, piping up a childishly annoyed voice as his father dressed in his coat, "There weren't any suggestive words in that statement. It's an order."

"Ed, you should take me out to dinner," Winry grinned smugly.

Scoffing at the request, Ed's face twisted with continued protest, "What! You two think I just have money floating around to take people out to dinner with? I don't go back to work for another week, and my pay cheque takes three weeks from that!"

A grin came over Hohenheim as he buttoned the front of the coat, "There's money in the cookie jar."

"Say what?" Ed's expression fell blank.

"Money in the cookie jar?" Winry looked over to the brown, porcelain, bear-shaped jar on a high shelf near the window.

Hohenheim nodded, opening the front door, "Help yourself and go somewhere nice on me, alright? And I'll see you at the hall at ten, don't forget. Have a good day you two." And he was gone before anyone had anything further to say about any of it.

Ed's bewildered expression panned from the door to the kitchen, "What?"

Winry laughed, eyeballing the porcelain jar that was supposed to hold cookies, "who puts money in a cookie jar?"

Ed shook his head, his tone confused by his own statement, "My dad does."

Still giggling, Winry stood up and walked across the kitchen. Stretching up on her tip toes to reach the jar on the shelf, her fingers snagged the bear-jar by its feet. She took it from the shelf, and cradled the heavy container against her chest, "Take me somewhere that doesn't require me to be dressed like a token arm accessory."

Ed choked on his laugh, entering the kitchen, "_You_ voluntarily went along with that."

Winry's hand clamped down on the bear's head, the lid to the jar, and she popped it off. Peering over her shoulder, Ed looked into the jar, his eyes widening at the contents within.

"Okay," Winry's free hand came up to scratch in her hair, "So, it wasn't the porcelain that made the jar heavy…"

Ed gawked at the jar nearly full of coins and wound bills, "Holy shit Dad… I knew we'd talked about taking some money out of the bank when the economy fell… but," his face twisted, "a _cookie jar_?"

A subtle little poke began to repeatedly harass Ed's left shoulder, and Winry eventually had his attention, "I can do token arm dressing for food. _Good_ food. Not cardboard food." She bounced a little where she stood as Ed's eyes shifted up to the corners of the ceiling in thought.

* * *

"The Empty City contained the other life, where Dante and Hohenheim once lived," Roze explained to a candlelit room full of men and women with blue collars buttoned to their ears.

With the sharp tug of his military jacket, Mustang's glance moved from Havoc to Riza, from Breda to Falman, from Sheska to Armstrong, over Ross and Broche, before cautiously leading all attention to Roze.

"It's where the first failed human transmutation took place," the woman from Lior held a somber voice for this late time of night, "and where the first Philosopher's Stone was created."

The room packed with military blues went as silent as the dead that Roze would discuss while she spoke.

"When Dante tries to crush your soul…" the young woman smoothed her hand over her knees, shifting, and finding the youngest Tlingum's hand on her shoulder, "she kind of gives up a little bit of herself in the process," Roze laughed at her thoughts lightly, "she fondled me like I was some dress she was going to put on, and told me stories that only the devil could write. She'd tell them to me while she'd subjugate my soul," she took a heavy swallow of air, running her fingers over her ears to tuck her hair away, "a frightened soul is the easiest kind to overwhelm, and while she was doing it, I just knew the stories were true. I was _this_ close to becoming her, I could feel her open doors into my soul and look in to examine what was left for strengths… and because it was a door opened, I could look back at her. She didn't mind. It worked to her advantage, because it frightened me more. Dante'd never lost a candidate before."

A shiver blew through the room at the bitter touch of the young woman's words. The collection of Amestris officers continued to invite their own silence into the tale.

"The first people to ever have attempted human transmutation were Dante and Hohenheim," Roze watched the eyes in the room flicker between each other, "they prided themselves on being the best there was, and the best there ever would be. And they _were._ No one could compare to them," a seed of empathy escaped in Roze's breath, "when their only son died, they tried to revive him through alchemy and red stones."

Roze allowed a pause to facilitate the reactions in the military ensemble. From the corner of her eyes that drifted in the room, she caught Havoc take his cigarette from his lips and Sheska's hands come over her mouth.

"Their human transmutation, the first human transmutation, failed; like it always fails without the Philosopher's Stone."

The young woman felt as though she were conveying a bastardized fairytale, ripe with inflammatory indignities, "They'd been so greedy; envious of all the perfect lives of mothers, fathers, and sons. They'd been pumped with pride for a skill that they believed put them above the laws of alchemy," she laughed at her own conveyance of the situation – no one on their own was above the laws of alchemy, "these sins made them arrogant, and ultimately could not bring back his life, destroying it instead."

The eyes of the military continued to watch with fascination and interest, strangely lacking fear, like the pages of Roze's sick fairytale could not possibly be true. It was strangely hard to fathom it was. A few bodies shifted in the deluge of the night. No one left the room, no one lost focus, and all eyes remained on the survivour of Lior.

"When the transmutation process failed, that was when they sought the Philosopher's Stone, but their envy had already been born, and it looked at them every day," Roze's eyes slipped away to the floorboards, her own mention of Envy brought a bloody mental image back to her head. She forced it down with a rise in her voice, "it made them vengeful; filled them with rage, contempt, and wrath against the world order," the woman's hands again smoothed over her knees, as though it had developed into something of a nervous habit; Izumi had actually pointed it out when she'd spent those months talking with her. "Dante and Hohenheim couldn't undo the disaster they'd created, but perhaps anything was possible with the Philosopher's Stone – they could turn their abomination into a man again with the Philosopher's Stone. Right the wrongs; correct the slothful neglect."

Frozen in place, enthralled by the sensation of a wild campfire story beneath a roof, every colour of every eye was devoted to Roze's words. Glances were no longer shared, because no one could possibly share anything more than the only young woman to have escaped from Dante could.

"That is how the Empty City ceased to exist," Roze exhaled a heavy breath, "it was there where a man and a woman's greed and gluttony devoured the life of an entire unknown city, extinguishing the lives of friends and neighbours, and allowed the populous to become the fear, grief, and blood of the first Philosopher's Stone."

Although his location was unknown, Roze was thankful that Alphonse was not present, "That is also where Hohenheim died the first time."

A few heavy brows twitched at her words, and the only exchange of glances occurred between two former State Alchemists – Mustang and Armstrong.

Roze continued, "Driven by the lust that remained for her lover, Dante used some fraction of the stone to steal the life of another man and replace it with her husband's. His dying soul was transplanted into this body and his life was renewed," her head shook a little, "the process Dante and Hohenheim used to change bodies was found in panic, by accident; a lousy twist of fate."

It was Mustang's, not Roze's, heavy sigh that the room heard. The young woman with a pinkish highlight to her thick, dark hair, watched the officer mull her words over before returning his focus to her.

"With the power of the stone, the city that ceased to exist was buried," her words were directly handed to the man leading the upheaval of Dante's imperfect society, "sins were hidden within the earth, and erased from memory over time. But that abomination of envy?" Roze's hands slipped up through her hair, pulling her strands back as though she'd intended to tie it, but swept it over one shoulder instead, "what Dante and Hohenheim learnt, in that first life, was that once a human transmutation has failed, the homunculus golem that remained meant that the original human life was unsalvageable. That person's existence was not only desecrated, it was ruined. Nothing can be recovered, and all you're left with is the dirty shadow of existence."

The morose fairytale continued to weigh down on society in a way no one had ever understood, because it had never been recognized before. The cost of failure of human transmutation had no measure to the chance of success. Eyes began to wander around in their own thoughts.

A lifted voice, unfitting for the weight of sin, held strong in Roze's words, "Dante chose to embrace her sins, but Hohenheim chose to walk away from them."

"Where is Envy?" Mustang asked heavily.

"I don't know," Roze shook her head for the officer, "I haven't seen Envy since Al brought Ed back. He just vanished."

* * *

Of the sixteen lanterns that had been set up around the Thule hall for light in the post-sunset hours, Hohenheim extinguished half of them. The meeting had broken at seven thirty, everyone had dispersed by eight, and Hohenheim made sure to linger until he would have been the last to go; he was a master of mulling about and appearing to be productive. This time, it had been easy to mingle and remain behind. At the start of the meeting he'd delivered his prepared excuse, and told the congregation he'd be giving them his leave. What a profound reaction that seemed to have – it surprised him a little. No one wanted to see him go.

The first man to leave the evening session had been Rudolf Hess, the last had been Karl Haushofer, and Hohenheim requested that Karl leave him be to have a few 'private moments' with to pay his respects to Shamballa. Even now Hohenheim laughed at how ridiculous that sounded, and how convinced everyone was of such impossible things. He hadn't believed in any god in hundreds of years. This entire world had the wool pulled over its eyes as far as he was concerned. He stood at the centre of the revolting transmutation circle etched into the floor, and tried to see what he could make of this area before Edward and Winry showed up.

"You're leaving them too?"

Hohenheim's eye twitched at the unwelcome voice he hadn't heard enter, "Hello Envy."

"Envy?" Adolf rolled his eyes, leaning over a waist high stone block near the far entrance of the room, "you're still going on about that? You can address me as Adolf."

"Only when it's convenient for you," Hohenheim drawled, slipping his hands into his pockets and eyeing the man partially hidden in the shadows of dim lighting. The old man walked towards someone sinful.

"Did you enjoy Christmas with your half metal boy and his pet girl?" Adolf folded his arms, pushing his chin to the side as he watched Hohenheim approach, "did everyone enjoy the season?"

The old Elric's brow tumbled, "What do you want?"

Adolf's voice rose above, like he'd been insulted, "To know how your Christmas went!"

"It went fine," Hohenheim answered, "now, why are you here and what do you want?"

"I was curious. You see, when my sources of information told me that everyone had left the Thule Hall but you, I got a little curious. What in the world could Hohenheim be doing post-meeting, all by himself? I came to have a look-see," the man who controlled the spin of the universe announced, "you appear to be admiring my art. Thank you."

Adolf, in his normal state, was far more composed, refined, eloquent, and freezing cold in demeanor than this. All Hohenheim heard in the voice was Envy. With power laced into his words, Hohenheim raised his voice, "You're going to kick that voice out at some point, aren't you Adolf? You're too proud for this kind of nonsense. This country is something you want to take on your own, right? What this is makes you weak and decrepit."

Envy rolled his rented eyes in response, "I feel very earthbound today," he straightened up, fixing the shirt he wore, "you have him pegged, I won't get to stick around much longer now. He's one pissed off fucker that someone else is making his arms move. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. Greedy greedy greedy," the face Envy wore grinned, "It'll be interesting to see what he does from afar later, it should be fascinating. There are lots of other people out there I can hang out with."

"Get out of here," Hohenheim ordered without a moment to pause or think between when the demon's words finished and his began.

A pointed finger ripped out at the old Elric father, "I will rip your throat out with my bare hands and feed it to the dogs if you speak to me like that again," Envy gave a pompous bounce of his brow as he found a new topic with the flick of his wrist, "Does that bastard child of yours know what you and I know? About why you've been standing in that circle looking so forlorn."

"Yes, Edward knows what this can do," the eldest person in the room replied.

Envy mulled the answer over, humming his slow thoughts with amusement, "I'm assuming you didn't tell him, that he sort of figured it out on his own after a bit of help," he waved his hands around, wishing for impossible inhuman strength, "because god forbid you let anything happen to that precious little whelp of a son you dote on."

Hohenheim's words grew colder than the winter chill in the stone, "Envy…"

Envy twisted Adolf's face in thought, "I can't call him 'little' or crack short jokes now, can I? That bastard child of yours grew up. He needs a new nickname," he gave a wag of his finger to the old man, "I bet you didn't tell him everything. You want to be his sweet old daddy; too busy trying to keep his fragile hopes alive. You don't have the balls to ruin his half metal life again."

The laugh Hohenheim rattled in his chest shook the air. With a toss of his brow and stiff jaw, he looked back upon his sin, "If you tell Edward there is nothing he can do on this side of the Gate to get back to the Gate doors, he's not going to believe you. Because you are you."

"And if you tell him the same thing, because you are you, he won't believe you either," Envy rolled his jaw, grinding the thought up in his teeth, "because he would think you are simply trying to be fatherly and protect him with discouragement. You've let it go on so long, you've set him up to fail. You're such a shitty father, why did you even bother?" a malicious shot of amusement crashed through Envy's borrowed eyes as he watched the solid figure of a man once known as Father simmer in his own rage, "The only way someone on this side has any contact with the other side, is if someone back home figures out how to trigger it. So, you and I, we get to watch the HalfMetal Alchemist run himself in circles, dragging that pet girl along with him, looking for an answer that doesn't exist. I find that rather comical."

"I don't," Hohenheim's words shook the cement walls.

"Guess who's to blame for that? You should have told him to give it up right from the day he got here." Envy scoffed at him; shaking his head, he looked to the domed ceiling, "Or maybe…maybe you were kind of hoping that shit child of yours would find something you hadn't – because I'll give the Half Metal kid this: he's smart. Maybe he can find a way to get all of us home again, something you and I managed to miss." The clap of Adolf's polished shoes echoed with the footsteps Envy began to take as he walked a wide circle around the rim of the hall, kicking his feet forward playfully and childishly with each step, gleefully holding Hohenheim in the fringes of his vision, "But then again, this world is the perfect out for you – you _have_ to die here. I guarantee you, if you were to go home, your instincts would kick in when your body is on its last legs, and you would FIND a way to transfer your soul again." The heel of his right shoe scraped on the cement as Envy slowly stopped, "I remember a time, years and _years ago,_ when you tried to let yourself die, and you failed miserably with that."

Like the tidal wave before fronting a rising storm, Hohenheim marched forwards, fists clenched, with rage in his eyes, "I've had quiet enough of you for tonight."

Before the torrential wave could get close, Envy threw his borrowed head back, huffed a sigh into the air, and suddenly had Hohenheim stopped at gunpoint, "Down, doggie."

Hohenheim narrowed an eye, "A firearm? How degrading for you."

"I know," Envy's eyes widened, playfully horrified with himself, "but like I said, I'm feeling a little earthbound. I'd love to run my fist through your chest like I did your son," the delightedly wishful look on Envy's face faded suddenly, "and you know what, for some reason that stupid little fucker is still alive. Do you know how much that pisses me off?" Cold, dark eyes looked Hohenheim over slowly, "I want to shred you with my bare hands and decorate this hall with your insides, but I don't have the strength for all of that anymore. I think if I reached over and tried to rip out your ribs with these dull fingers, just so I could paint the walls red with your spongy heart, I wouldn't get too far with that. Poor Adolf would find the trigger and kick me out." A scowl began to crop into Adolf's face, creasing his nose and streaking his brow, "I can feel him churning at the thought." Envy's brow popped up playfully again, waggling the gun in his hand with amusement, "So, what is it they say here? When in Rome?"

"What do you want from me, Envy?" Hohenheim boomed, "this has gone on far too long."

Envy threw the voice he used around the room, "Don't be a senile old bastard! I want to spill your blood on this floor, and I know you're not stupid enough to think you're getting out of here before I pull this trigger," the crass voice tried so hard to shred the cement walls that encased this moment, "and then I'll let this world have its way with that only son of yours, because I will have had my way with you. I will watch him suffer until his death."

Hohenheim blinked; unmoving, unwavering, "I have two sons. Both Edward and Alphonse are my sons."

The darkness of the room's aura thickened, "You don't seem to think the younger one is very important to you. You don't even acknowledge he exists."

"Because, the alternative was to speak of Alphonse as though he were dead. Edward and I would have none of that," the Elric father spoke of a years-old decision, standing strong and without fear of his raging sin threatening to quake the earth, "but, a child needs no other reason to be important to his or her parents than simply being their child. Both of them are important to me, even if I'm the poorest parent to show it."

A sick, dark look flooded out from the hate of envy, blackening the hall and casting away any illusion of moonlight as the demon's voice entered again, "And they somehow corrected the first family you fucked up?"

"No, nothing could ever correct that mistake."

The stain glass window decorations high above could have shattered into a thousand pieces, the glass could have crashed to the cement flooring like heavy rain, and the cold winter air could have flooded in until flesh froze to death, and neither occupant of this cement hall would have noticed.

"… Mistake?" Adolf's voice repeated the answer like Envy hadn't heard the words properly.

Hohenheim paused, thinking over his statement, "Until we reached a certain point, I had a wonderful relationship with Dante; that was not a mistake. And my first son's life was not a mistake, his death was not a mistake, but everything I did for my family after he died was a mistake," spoken with cold, cruel, unequivocal truth, "that makes you a mistake, Envy. You are a mistake. I told you this the last time we spoke."

A wordless, unreadable exchange took place between a father that no longer was and his punishment that haunted him in every life he lived.

"And I told you last time we spoke, I would kill you," bold, heavy words were spoken. Envy brought up the strong arm of the man who someday would try to conquer all, and cocked the handgun, "and I will watch to see how the HalfMetal Alchemist fairs against the repercussions of his old man's sins."

Hohenheim stood square to the figure staring him down, his feet firmly planted to the earth, head bowed just enough that he could use his own eyes to see clearly over the rims of his glasses, "I do believe, jealousy is at the heart of all envy."

His sin laughed at him, "Yes, it is."

* * *

"Welcome to the Gate, Alphonse Elric," a little girl's voice cried out, all too joyous about the event.

Al was almost certain he was one sudden movement away from being violently sick to his stomach. He picked his head up slowly, and looked out into a white expanse of nothingness.

"The trip isn't always so pleasant the first time around, and you're here for your first time in a completely different way than anyone else has first experienced the Gate. Diana has escorted you, and you've sacrificed nothing. It's probably a little different feeling for you," Dante mulled the thought over, trying to recall a very old sensation, "but I've been here, and your father has been here, your teacher has been here, your brother has been here, and in a manner of speaking, your mother has been here as well."

If she kept talking, Al was certain he was going to be sick. Slowly he sat back on his knees and cautiously peered over his shoulder. His hands shook like the nerves in his body had been shocked, and he gripped onto his hooded jacket to calm his body down.

Dante turned away from the black, gaping mouth of the Gate. With her hands on her hips, she continued to hold her grin wide for her captive Elric to see, "And now you are here! It's a family affair, more or less."

Alphonse moved from his knees to his backside, sitting on a white surface that gave off no sensation; neither warm nor cold, smooth nor coarse – just simply a surface he sat on. He looked up to the yawning hole of the Gate, unable to escape the intangible crush that seemed to weigh on him from it. His eyes caught Diana, held high in the grasp of stone arms above the Gate. Her cry was faint. The sensations that overwhelmed Al at his arrival slowly began to fade. Finding that the tremble of his hands had lessened, and hints of strength were returning to his body, Al pushed to his feet.

"So, this is what you will do, Alphonse Elric: you will find a way to extract your brother from beyond the Gate, while I try to sweep up these lose ends falling away around the country," she gave a dismissive wave of her hands before skipping a few steps towards him, "I'm a talented woman, but if I can delegate at least one or two things, I'd function so much better."

"I won't help you," Al told her again, "I won't bring my brother back if I know you're going to torture him into giving you information."

"I won't torture him," Dante rolled her eyes at the thought, quite insistent about her methods, "I'm only going to extract information, and as long as everyone is cooperative, it won't hurt, and I won't leave his mind in any kind of vegetative state."

Al's blood rose, boiling into his ears.

Turning from the young Elric, Dante smiled to herself as she re-approached the Gate. She looked up to Diana, cradled high in the arms of stone corpses that lined the frame of the Gate; the infant was silent. Her eyes lowered into the black abyss again, a 'thing' that had embodied her frustrations. With another step towards the Gate, Dante's right foot came down to the floor, and her step made an odd squish as she shifted her weight to the leg.

Dante stopped abruptly, blinking down to her feet.

Alphonse looked to her as well, finding the sound odd and out of place – there were no sounds here beyond their voices.

Staring down, Dante curiously looked at a thick crimson liquid pooling around her feet, slowly leaking out from the base of the Gate. It was such a potent, dark red at the door's baseline seam, that it looked nearly as black as the Gate's abyss. Bending over, Dante swept the tip of her index finger through the liquid, and brought a sample back up to eye level.

Alphonse watched an obvious change in Dante's posture, while the substance continued to slowly spread out along the surface.

"Blood?" Dante's brow rose.

"_Blood_?" Al repeated in alarm. It was impossible for Dante to make her voice low enough that he couldn't hear in a space without any other sound.

Dante took another step, this one backwards, and yet again the sloshing sound came out as her feet moved around. Her eyes shifted between the Gate and the run of thick blood coating the indistinguishable white floor. Alphonse had no idea what to expect from the Gate, but he honestly didn't believe this was something that should be there at all, if Dante's reaction was any indication.

"What the hell is going on?" Dante couldn't shield the concern in her voice, and she sharply turned to her company, "are you causing this?"

Al's eyes flew wide at the accusation, stepping away from Dante and the spill, "How am I causing anything?"

Dante brushed her finger off on her skirt, looking up at the massive expanse of the Gate, "Maybe bringing you here had an effect on it, since you've been in the Gate's possession before?" Dante stepped up to the Gate despite what was at her feet, her thoughts audible as she walked up and placed her fingers in the black tar of the opened door, "but, I've _never_ seen this before. Something must be present that wasn't present before."

Dante turned away from the monumental problem, and began to approach Alphonse. She opened her mouth to speak again, but was silenced by a rumble; a rumble at the core of existence. Alphonse felt the vibration too, and grabbed the front of his shirt, again stepping away. Dante's attention swung back over her shoulder to the void of the Gate, and she quickly began to move away from the structure, "Again?"

"Again?" Alphonse shrieked, his voice pitching as the rumble grew stronger, "again what?"

"The Gate rumbled like this when Brigitte came through… but it seized with power for her and didn't _bleed_. What the hell is this?" she continued to back away as the rumble grew stronger still, like standing in the path of a thundering freight train that bore down on them.

"We should leave, Dante!" Al yelled at her, but both figures suddenly found themselves frozen, like deer caught in headlights, and _something_ passed through the Gate. Al flinched when it struck, raising his arms and curling away in defence. A wave of energy passed through him, touching every fiber of his being; it felt similar to the sensation he would get when he was acutely aware of his existence each time he'd perform a transmutation. Except… he hadn't attempted alchemy. No one had. The sensation passed almost instantly, vanishing like it had never happened, and the world at the Gate went silent again. In retrospect, the thundering locomotive that had bore down on them passed by like nothing more intimidating than a light summer breeze. It had faintly tickled.

Baby Diana began to howl.

Alphonse straightened up and looked to the Gate. The blood was gone. Everything was cleaned to white again. The doors were still open, the world beyond dark as pitch, and high above, Diana screamed like only an unsettled infant could. There was no way Alphonse could get up there to reach her and calm her.

"Dante…" Al's call of her name cautiously escaped him, yet he received no response; he could only hear the shrill scream of Diana's cry.

"Dante?"

Al's eyes shifted around. The old alchemist no longer stood where she'd once been. His eyes shot around, seeing nothing but white endlessness and the dark monstrosity of the Gate. He threw his head around to every angle imaginable, above himself and below his feet as well. There was nothing. No one. She was gone. Alphonse looked at the Gate, suddenly aware of the fact that he was the only one standing there, and he had no idea how to get away from it.

_

* * *

Thursday, December 29, 1921. 10:08PM_

One street light at the end of the block was all that lit the sidewalk, weakly showing the way to the Thule Hall entrance. Ed looked over his shoulder at Winry, and she let out a white puff of her breath into the chilled air.

"I think I ate way too much," Winry wrapped her arms around her stomach, "I think I actually feel full and that's not normal."

"Told you it was a good place," Ed fiddled with the keys in his left pocket, "one of the best restaurants in town."

"Still tasted like cardboard," Winry paused before smirking, watching as Ed rolled his eyes at her, "but it was really good cardboard, so it gets an A+ for cardboard."

"I'm glad it met your approval," he drawled out, looking ahead to the church doors. A restless thought for the monumental task of the Thule hall diagram lay ahead. Winry's hand startled Ed a bit as it landed on his shoulder. He looked at her as she grinned with an infusion of confidence.

"Come on. I'd actually like to get some sleep tonight," she was the one with the steno pad, pen, and measuring tape in her purse, "I need to help get my men some alchemy numbers to chew on for the next few months."

Ed's brow rose, following Winry as she walked ahead, "Your men? Since when are Dad and I 'your men'?"

She shrugged playfully, putting a grin over her shoulder before stepping up to the church doors.

The only thing that Ed's light hearted words and Winry's casual playing did for the evening was serve as a damper for how they did not care for the building they were entering. The church at street level was a little guise above the location where the actual gatherings took place. It was a religious cavern of nightmares – a place where Edward watched his sense of humanity rot away, and where Winry had spent days of terror without dignity. Neither wanted to be here, but both had decided it was right. Their fears were told to shiver in a corner, because there was something excruciatingly important in the bowels of this world. After entering, Ed turned back and locked the doors behind them.

"Oh!" Winry tried to talk over the unease as she looked up to the ceiling that locked out the Munich evening, "so, for some reason, I got a crazy idea yesterday while I was looking at the airplane schematics, about what to do about getting you a right arm again."

Ed snorted, shaking his head as he walked into the building, cutting a path down the centre isle, "If you are going to fuse me to an airplane in any way, shape, or form, the answer is no."

"Idiot," Winry wrinkled her nose, stalling in her thoughts at the center of the building, "It was just some inspiration that hit me while I was looking at things. We've been busy and we haven't really discussed it. I think I should work on something to get you properly fixed up, until we get home again."

"If you want to make it, go for it," Ed stopped and looked back to Winry, watching as she slowly pulled herself along, her eyes capturing the interior of the building surrounding them. "Hey, you don't have to come down if you don't want to," he drew out his words carefully, knowing that this place might unsettle her more than it did him, "you can stay up here or I can walk you back home. I'm not going to force you to go down there. Dad and I can take care of things ourselves if you don't want to be here."

Winry shook her head quickly, "No way in hell I'm staying up here all by myself," she scampered down the centre isle to meet up with him, "and it'll take too long to get home. Besides, I got all dressed up for dinner, and I should see what your dad thinks of my efforts. I don't need Mathilde to dress me up all the time to look like I can fit in here."

"She'll be heartbroken," Ed rolled his eyes at her.

"I even got all my hair to stay up on my head, and then somehow got my winter hat on. Good job, team me," Winry patted herself on the back as she patted the collection of twirled hair strands pinned to her head.

"You're insane," Ed gave her a twisted look, "Why are you being so fussy about how you look? You've never been fussy about how you look; it's weird. It's like you're a girl or something."

"You are such an ass," she hissed before straightening herself out and trying to stand a little taller, "you told me I had to be this fussy, so start giving me points for trying to pull off these frumpy dresses everyone wears."

Ed looked as though he wanted to laugh, but didn't, he just rolled his eyes once more and held up his left hand, "You get five points."

Winry looked back at him with mock horror, "Only _five_?"

"Yeah, _only_ five."

Ed reached out for a door at the side, stage left of everything, and slipped a key into the lock of the Thule hall door. He gave it a sharp twist with his wrist, and swung it open. Edward took a few steps inside the door before he reemerged with a lantern in his hand. Winry sifted through her purse to find a match to light it, and she struck it firmly over the frame of the door, soon giving life to the container in Ed's hand.

Since the first day Edward could remember, the cement and cobblestone stairwell to the Thule hall smelt like what he thought being trapped in a water-well shaft would smell like. The hall itself was more or less dry, but the stairwell seemed to suck up all the moisture between the church above and hall below. It was bitterly cold in the winter. The fact it had no lighting only added to the effect. Ed made the abrupt conclusion years ago that he never wanted to get trapped in a well.

At the bottom of the stairwell was something like a small rotunda, before it ballooned into the hall. Without taking more than a few steps, both Edward and Winry came to a silent stop at the bottom of the stairs, looking out into the Thule hall. The entire room was sunken in darkness – even the clouds had decided to swallow the moonlight from the glass overhead.

"Dad?" Ed called into the stone room's echo.

A precautionary hand came up to Ed's empty shoulder, and Winry made sure that the one place darkness was not, was between the two of them, "Um…" her eyes shifted hesitantly, her voice locked below the echo of the room, "there's no one down here…"

Ed lowered his brow at the scene, scoffing indignantly as he walked forwards, "He's _supposed _to be here." He swung the lantern forwards, throwing the light ahead. Ed held the light high while his feet came to stand at the point where the rough cobblestone and cement bricks yawned widely into the open core of the hall. With calculated effort, the hall slowly accepted the light Edward offered.

The heart of this world was poisoned, as far as Ed had ever been concerned. He'd been dropped off in England in 1916, at the height of the Great War, and watched as portions of the world tried to destroy itself. Men had moments when Ed thought they liked the taste of blood better than the taste of wine. Of all the people in the world he'd encountered with a taste for man's blood, the members of the Thule Society were the neatest and tidiest villains he'd ever met. They were moderately wealthy, moderately powerful, and all people of 'proper' statute. They were an elite group of hand-picked people who had a narrow view on what mankind should be. They had an order about their business that nobody tampered with.

Contrary to Thule behaviour, a body's shadow lay on their centerpiece, illuminated poorly by the lantern held high by a flesh hand. A body that, under any other circumstance would not, and should not, be there. Dead bodies were discarded by means Edward did not know. They were showcases, and were never meant to be left to rot. This body was on display though, laid out on its stomach, arms out, and face down. It was a heavy body beneath a black trench coat, dressed in a fine pair of shoes that Edward Elric knew had been purchased in London years ago.

"Dad?"

There was no answer, just the echo of his childish voice in the dome.

Edward did not react to the sudden grip of Winry's hand at his chest, or to the frantic voice that said something to him that he couldn't hear. His eyes swallowed the poisonous world shrouded in darkness; drank it down like water. It spread through his body with the pumping of his blood, numbing to the tips of the fingers, causing the lantern to crash on the floor.

**

* * *

To Be Continued...  
**


	33. Der gute Kamerad

**Foreword:** This is a chapter for the world beyond the Gate. Ed's side only. Please make sure you've read the prior chapter before reading this one. This chapter is not very cheery.

* * *

**Part XXXIII - Chapter 84 - Der gute Kamerad**

**

* * *

**__

Friday, December 30, 1921. 12:08AM

There was a verbal explosion when Haushofer and Hess arrived. Everyone had heard them coming from up above. An officer, one of many, all who seemed none too comfortable about the location where they were, looked over when the two men had came in. The lanterns provided the only light, the moon was hidden behind the clouds above, and Hess slammed his lantern down at the side of the hall. Like a raging bull, Hess stormed around amongst the uniformed men, his voice crashing. The elder Haushofer stood a little calmer, stiff with his emotions but no less unnerved. When the professor spoke, his voice only came up where he felt it was appropriate. A young man in uniform approached Haushofer and spoke with him. After a surge of sudden anger ripped through the older man's disposition, Haushofer tore a clipboard out of the officer's hands. He looked at the clipboard, read it a few times, not caring how long it took to do so. The officer stood silent next to him, waiting for his documents to be returned to him.

Hess's voice, tangled in an uproar, vanished for a few moments and he walked back to Haushofer. With a hand to the older man's shoulder, Hess passed on a verbal piece of information, and had his companion turn over his shoulder. There was a problem back against the wall. Hess began to walk towards it, his rage sullied – now composed and silent, stopping and crouching down in front of the side wall.

Edward sat on the floor, back pressed up against the wall; he gave a passing acknowledgement of Hess with a disinterested look. His colourless expression was unreadable. His posture was sloppy, he sat lazily, like he'd fallen on his backside there, or someone had dropped him like a raggedy toy. Winry sat next to him, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her right hand had captured Ed's left and pinned it between them.

Where Ed was nothing more than a white sheet, Winry had taken possession of all the flesh colour between the two of them. Her face was flushed, her eyes bloodshot, and Hess thought she looked a little sick. A couple of the ties of hair that she'd pinned up on her head had fallen out.

Hess asked Edward a menial question, and another, and again; useless questions where the answer was obvious, but someone feels the need to ask anyways. The more questions Hess asked, the more concerned he grew, because the majority of replies were given in English. He had to ask Edward to repeat nearly every one of his answers, suspecting that Ed was unaware of what he was doing.

Hess sat down on the floor at Ed's empty right shoulder, brushing his hands off over the knees of his pants before looking out into the hall. He came to the conclusion that perhaps none of them should be sitting at this vantage point. There was a body in this line of sight with a white blanket over it. Hess turned to Ed again with something to say, but stopped and watched Winry stare at him. He wasn't certain which one of the two was harder to focus on, Ed because there was absolutely nothing to see on him, or Winry because there was so much. Every breath she took trembled, in contrast to Edward who was clam and docile. She stared at Hess where he sat. Hess almost considered getting up and rejoining Haushofer. Under any other circumstance, he would have laughed in amusement at how the look in someone's eye, a girl's eyes, had the audacity to so poignantly instruct him to leave.

Haushofer knelt down near Ed's partially outstretched legs, and picked up where the menial questions had left off.

Hess eyed the fingers of two hands woven together and pinned between the two bodies. The furrow in his brow tightened, eyeing how the knuckles on Ed's hand were strained as white as his complexion. Hess wondered if Winry's hand was hurting from his grip.

* * *

_Friday, December 30, 1921. 3:17AM_

The rumble of a car engine went silent, and the click of a door handle snapped open, then the whole thing slammed shut again without much time in between. A tired looking man glanced around at the lingering gathering of people and officers outside this religious facility.

"Are you Hermann Oberth?" a voice called.

"Yes," Hermann answered.

A man with a strong, right arm and thick, brown hair reached out to shake Oberth's hand, "Rudolf Hess." He introduced himself.

Under any other circumstance, there were honestly a million other things Oberth would have wanted to talk to Hess about, the man's name was prominent and familiar, but he couldn't entertain those thoughts, "What in God's name happened here?" he took the firm handshake Hess gave him and proceeded to march towards the open doors of a shoddy, street level church, "what kind of accident? Are Edward and Winry alright?"

"They're inside," Hess stopped the man's movements with a firm hand to his shoulder. His words neither paused for thought nor consideration of remorse; he spoke with fact, "Hohenheim was killed earlier tonight."

Hermann blinked back at Hess, not certain if he'd heard it right, "What?"

"Down in the hall."

"I'm sorry, what?" Hermann repeated, sweeping his winter hat off his head, "Professor Hohenheim?" it was an absurd statement to attempt to confirm someone with a unique name like that, but he did anyways, "What?" his head shook in disbelief, "How? Are you serious?"

"Yes," Hess gave a nod of confirmation, "they took his body away about an hour ago."

"What?" the facts were not sinking in, "By whom? When?"

Hess looked to his watch, running the times through his head. The night was a blur; a little hard for anyone to compose, "Before midnight sometime, I can't recall exactly."

Hermann fluttered the beginning syllables of a few words that he chose not to use, before running his hands over his face, exhaling heavily, "How did he die?"

The question brought an uncomfortable pause to Hess that Oberth had not wanted to see, "Gunshot wound, they think," he cleared his throat, "but there were other injuries though, so his body will be examined."

Unable to force himself to process the outstanding and bewildering information, Hermann's wide eyes drilled around the landscape, "This is Hohenheim Elric, who on earth would even…"

Hess shook his head, "I have no idea."

With another weighted exhale, not certain if the knowledge was honestly setting in, Herman slipped his hat back on, "Who found him?"

There was that unsettling shift again that Hess had, and his eyes moved to the lit entrance ahead, "Edward and Winry did."

"Oh God," Hermann's hands came back to scrape over his face, "they found him like that?"

"Yes," there was an abundance of deep concern that Hess tried to hide in his voice, "Can you take care of them tonight? I don't think they should head home on their own, or at all, for now. I'd ask Karl, but Hohenheim was a good friend, I don't think burdening him with Edward and Winry is particularly fair to him at the moment."

"Absolutely," Oberth gave his response without hesitation.

"Edward has said that Winry's tired and she wants to go. I won't disagree with him, but I suspect the statement applies to both of them," Hess gave a momentary glance to the entrance, "so give them a good bed tonight if you can."

Again, a heavy sigh moved out of Hermann's lungs, creating a momentary white cloud in the chilly air. He turned away from the man he'd conversed with, and returned to approaching the building, "Are they up here or down in the hall?"

"Up here," Hess called, "just inside the doors, in the pews on your left."

* * *

_Friday December 30, 1921. 8:35PM_

Edward couldn't account for Winry, since he hadn't seen her in some time. He had slept for twelve hours, waking up sometime between five and six late that afternoon. He'd since laid on his back on the Oberth's couch for hours, just staring up at the white ceiling – it was in the way of his line of sight and nothing more. He wanted to go back to sleep. That wasn't forthcoming.

Without thought to his actions, Ed stood up. He was stiff, and he stretched a little to try and work that out. The decision was reached that he wanted a shower. He didn't ask if anyone else in the Oberth house wanted to use it or needed the hot water for other things, he just grabbed some towels from the linen closet and gave himself a shower. The faux left leg was discarded in the corner of the room and he took the shower sitting down; he didn't feel like standing on one leg for it. The longer the shower went, the more the tub faucet became an object like the ceiling, and item in the way of his line of sight. Unlike the ceiling, Ed continued to be distracted from it, the soap intermittently slipped from his hand. After the fourth time he'd fumbled it, Ed snatched it back from the drain, and threw it so hard against the tile wall that the ivory bar cracked. It fell back down to the drain catch in two pieces. Sometime later, he took them out, put them in the soap dish, and turned off the shower.

The hot water had been running cold.

He stood in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and another that wrapped his hair. He'd put the other leg back on, but he wasn't standing, the wall held him up. Once in a while he'd get a thought that involved putting his pants back on and leaving the room, but he always managed to lose the thought. No particular thought stuck around long enough for Ed to remember to act on it. The towel on his head kept sliding, so he re-tied it. Eventually, he threw the towel from around his waist up around his neck and put his pants back on. His hand firmly gripped the door handle, giving the knob a fierce wrench to comply, before finally leaving the room.

Ed returned to the couch where he'd spent the last many hours. The towel shifted on his head again when he sat, and he looked to Hermann who'd taken a seat in the room.

"How're you doing?"

Ed's brow wrinkled a bit, "When Winry's up, have her look at the doorknob upstairs. I think it's buggered."

Hermann nodded, accepting the non-response from Ed, "Did you sleep well?"

"I slept fine," he looked to the couch where he had indeed slept fine, "how's Winry doing?"

"She's alright. Sleeping last I checked."

Ed sighed, again adjusting the stubbornly uncooperative towel on his head.

Hermann's gaze shifted in the room, excessively passive with his forthcoming words, "Do you know what happened to her wrist, though?"

"Her wrist?" Ed looked at the man, "what's wrong with her wrist?"

The man of the house shook his head like the question lacked concern, "I wrapped her wrist this morning when she was up, it seemed to be bothering her. She wasn't very interested in letting me handle it, and Mathilde and I couldn't get enough of a conversation going with Winry to find out more. The languages caused a bit of a problem."

"Oh," Ed paused for a few moments before he shook his head, "I don't know, sorry."

"That's fine," Hermann dismissed the question, watching as Ed again fussed over the towel on his head.

Ed snorted in frustration with the towel that was refusing to sit properly on his head. A heavy seam slashed through his brow for a moment. Ed ripped the towel off his head and threw it harshly to the corner of the couch. He looked at it for a moment, and then looked back to Hermann who stared at him. The two men sat without a word between them for several minutes.

Hermann drew to his feet, "I'll get Tilly to grab you something to eat."

"I'm not hungry, Hermann."

"You haven't had anything to eat since dinner last night, let Tilly get you something."

Ed sighed.

* * *

_Saturday, December 31, 1921. 09:29AM_

Ed stood silently in the entryway of his father's house. The curtains were still pulled from the days before when he'd shut them for the evening. Everything was dark, daylight occasionally filtering in around the window dressings. Ed had been standing at the front door for far too long without the threat of motion. His hand still gripped the doorknob, unable to move through the house and cut a path in the air to start this day. Eventually, Edward's hand fumbled with the doorknob on the front door; he latched it shut to keep the cool air from pooling at his feet. The sealing of the door had made a horrible, hollow sound through the house. Ed hadn't been home in a few days, and the house smelt a little stale and a bit stuffy.

Ed slid out of his boots, stepping out of his right boot, but not managing a clean escape for his left foot. He shook his foot free, and the boot thumped to the mat. He finally cut his path through the core of the silent house, like he was the ghost. He drifted through the living room to get to his father's study. The Christmas tree was still up. Ed eyed it, not sure what to do about it, before deciding there was nothing to do about the tree right now, and he entered the study. The study door was never locked and rarely sealed, so Ed easily made his way in. He didn't busy himself with anything else in the room – he went straight for the filing cabinet. Grabbing the desk chair, Ed swung it over to the cabinet and sat down, pulling out the lowest drawer. He leafed through papers tucked away in folders, extracting sheets of interest and placing them on the desk. A black, wool sweater was still thrown over the back of the chair Ed sat on; his dad always kept a sweater there in the winter. Ed eventually took it off the chair and laid it down on the desk. There was no longer a point in having his father's sweater over the back of the chair.

A collection of papers soon gathered on the desk. Abruptly, Ed left the room like an ordered soldier, making his way through the preserved house to the entry hall closet. Ed took his briefcase from the closet, tucked it under his arm when his hand wouldn't catch the handle properly, and returned to the study. He dumped the briefcase on his father's desk, snapped the latches open with two emphatic clicks, and began stuffing papers inside of it. At the end of the self-appointed order, the latches snapped shut, sealing Hohenheim's records within his son's briefcase louder than any action Ed had taken so far that day. He left his father's study, leaving the door open like it would normally be found.

Ed dropped the briefcase at the bottom of the stairs with an echo and went up to the second floor. The sound of his feet in the stairwell was deafening in the empty house. From the hallway linen closet, Ed extracted a fairly large, but unremarkable fabric shoulder bag from a collection of random things. Edward paused, indecisive on where to go next, before picking the easy option and going to his room, struggling with the door knob as he entered. Ed pulled out drawers to his dresser and opened his closet with a clatter as he began rummaging through his belonging. He grabbed changes of clothes without concern for what he was wearing; it didn't matter to him. With the easy task swiftly completed, Ed took a deep breath and went to Winry's room next. He returned to being a soldier ordered to a task, and Ed repeated the motion of gathering clothes. He forcefully shut out the conflict that existed between consciously thinking about what Winry may or may not want to wear, and the idea he was rummaging through a young woman's wardrobe. Ed left Winry's room once he was satisfied with what he'd collected, fumbling with the doorknob as he shut her door behind himself. The final task directed Ed to the washroom where he collected a handful of toiletries. They were wrapped in a hand towel, and added it to the collection of things in the bag.

Ed looked down the hall as he finished, to the open door of his father's empty bedroom. The room was bright, and the only room with curtains open to let in any light. He dropping the fabric bag in the middle of the floor with a thump and soldiered his way into his father's bedroom. The goal had been to walk straight to the curtains and shut them, but his feet stopped just past the doorway. Ed rarely went into his father's room for any reason; all the man ever did was sleep and dress in this room. Hohenheim lived in his study. Edward instructed his legs to move so he could shut the curtains, and with two swift swings of his arm, he shut the light out. Ed turned around to look at the empty bedroom: bed made, clothes folded, and things put away. Anything that wasn't 'away' was piled carefully where his dad had last left it. The closet door had been left open, like his father had meant to come back for something, but left the house without returning for it. Ed abruptly closed the closet as he made his way out of the room; whatever his dad had forgotten wasn't going to be remembered. Ed clumsily shut the door to his father's room, making too much noise as he did so.

Ed snatched up the bag from the floor, but stopped before taking his first step down the stairs. He turned over his shoulder and pulled himself back to Winry's room. He fumbled with her door handle as he reopened it. Ed stood and looked through Winry's room; to her dresser, to the corners of her room, to her window, and finally to her unmade bed. Nothing he saw interested him. He moved to her bed lifted away the mess of sheets she'd piled on the mattress, his eyes looking around and finding nothing he wanted. Dropping the sheets, Ed moved her pillow aside and uncovered what he'd been looking for. Ed picked up the Christmas doll from beneath her pillow. Maybe Winry would want this: a trinket from home, always made as a gift, created with the knowledge two little boys had gained after they'd gone through their father's books without permission. Ed silently tucked that away in the bag. He left the room without trying to grab the door.

Returning downstairs, there was little else Ed could take with him from this house right now, except for something from the bear jar in the kitchen. Edward shut out the rest of the house and created a tunnel that lead him to the jar on the kitchen counter. He popped the head off the porcelain bear and fished out some of its contents. Coins clattered to the floor when he tried to stuff the handful into an inside pocket of his coat. Ed crouched down and began the task of slowly picking up the fallen pieces. The task became tiresome, and he only retrieved coins that had some kind of significant value; he stuffed those away, and left the rest where they lay. He'd pick them up later. Ed returned the head to the jar, and considered returning the jar to the shelf where it had once sat. He concluded two steady hands were needed for the task. Ed swiftly ended his encounter with the kitchen, and returned to the hall.

With the bag of clothing and random bits still over his shoulder, Ed snatched up his briefcase from the floor, returned his feet to his boots, and moved to the front door. A pause came before he'd actually reached for this doorknob. The son's face twitched. Ed stood facing the front door for a few, long moments before turning and looking back into the house.

The house still looked the same as it had a few days ago. It looked the same as it would when he'd come home in the middle of the day because something had been forgotten. The same as it would when he'd get home from work. The same as it would when he'd come downstairs and his dad was nowhere to be found, because he was in his study grading papers.

Except, that the house now smelt stale because there was nobody around to stir the air.

Ed finally left the house, telling himself he could walk away from this.

* * *

_Saturday, December 31, 1921. 11:15AM_

Winry was quiet, sitting silent and cross-legged on her borrowed bed. She'd stalled there and never recovered. She had no idea how long she'd been there, daydreaming of nothing. She wished she could get out, but seemed unable to break the button that paused her life. Someone thankfully had the audacity to break it for her when her door swung open. Surprised, she looked up at Edward, who'd left unannounced an hour or so before.

"Where did you go?"

"Here," Ed tossed the half-full shoulder bag to her, "change of clothes."

"Thanks…?" she eyeballed the fabric lump suddenly in her arms.

"I'll be downstairs for a bit, there's somebody here I'm supposed to talk to," Ed's tone held perfect and flat.

Winry fought against the weight of her frown, "What's it about?"

"I don't know," a monotone response came out as he spoke, "funeral things. I went home and grabbed papers from the study, they can pick out what they want from it."

It sounded suspiciously like he'd known what documents to fetch, but Winry didn't want to press, "Do you want me to come down with you?"

"No," Ed turned away to leave, "it'll be in German anyways, you won't understand it."

"That's okay. I can still come, if you want," she made sure the offer was known.

Ed shook his head, "No, it's fine."

Again, Winry didn't push, "Okay."

Edward was nearly gone, his hand to the doorknob pulling it shut again, before he stopped, and put his voice back in the room, "Is your wrist alright?"

Winry's lower lip caught in her teeth and she looked down at it sheepishly, "It's fine, just a little sore; I slept on it funny I think. Hermann overreacted; I couldn't tell him he was being silly."

"Alright," Ed pulled the door shut.

Staring at the sealed frame, Winry coaxed herself out of the stall she'd been stuck in, and she dumped the contents of the bag Edward had given her onto the sheets. She crawled off the bed to examine the findings. A decision was reached on what to wear: a skirt and sweater on the top of the pile. Winry stood in front of the little round mirror atop the table in the room, fixed her hair with the brush from the bag, and decided to brave the house.

By the time she stood in the hall, the house was angry. It wasn't red, flaming anger, but it was an angry element within the muffled sound of Edward's German voice that heated the house. Winry slipped down the stairs without a sound. None of the unknown voices he conversed with were raised, in fact, everything was quite calm, but Ed had a skill of projecting anger and annoyance into his voice, similar to how his father projected power. The more she listened to the conversation from the house hallway, the more she was certain the tone he had was unnerving the people with him. She stood outside the room of conversation, listening to the verbal exchanges in a language she'd given up trying to understand. Eventually, things went silent.

Ed suddenly emerged from the room and made a sharp turn for the front door – Winry startled at his exit, but she was out of his line of sight, and he hadn't noticed her. When Hermann appeared, a bundle of papers in hand, Edward's voice began to rise like rage in a volcano, and he spun around to address him. The volcano quelled when Ed caught Winry in his sights beyond Hermann's shoulder. The man of the house turned to her as well. She stared back at them, her eyes asked nothing of Hermann, but she requested to know from Ed what he was doing as he took his coat into his arms.

No answer was given. Ed threw the coat over his shoulders, slammed his feet into his boots, and left.

Winry didn't look at Hermann, she just took herself back up to her room. Her feet made no sound to her ears as she climbed the stairs. The door to the spare room made no sound either when it was closed. With a heaving motion, Winry swept the clothes she'd dumped on the bed to the floor, at which point everything stopped. She stared at the pile of clothes – her doll's head peeked out at her from within the mess. Winry reached down and pulled the poor thing out. She stood in the middle of this spare room and stared at it in her hands, slowly losing track of time. Eventually, Winry laid herself down on the bed, the doll still tucked away in her hands, and curled up into the pillow.

* * *

_6:03PM_

Ed watched from the corner of his eye as Hermann sat down on the coffee table and took Winry's right arm from her. She protested, standing up to leave the room. Hermann caught her and sat her back down again. He unwrapped her wrist while her eyes looked deep into her lap. Ed watched Hermann turn her wrist over, moving it for her a little. Winry winced, though she tried very hard not to. The man of the house said something to her in a quiet voice that Ed did not register, and Winry couldn't understand, as he re-wrapped everything. She sunk into the seat cushion when he was finished, her hand resting in her lap, her eyes cast away elsewhere.

Hermann began to talk about arrangements for Hohenheim – the papers from earlier – and Ed's ears slowly turned him out. He gave some generic and useless answers to questions before shutting Hermann out entirely. The man persisted, and Ed got up and briskly went upstairs without regard to anyone. At the top of the staircase, he looked around; there was nothing upstairs for him, since all his things were in that room downstairs. He stood at the door of the spare room Winry had, and wondered why he'd even bothered to approach the room, or if it made any sense for him to go in.

It didn't. He turned around to go back downstairs, but stopped suddenly. Winry stood behind him.

She smiled sheepishly, "We can switch if you like?"

"No, it's fine, it's your room," Ed moved to walk past her, but she grabbed him at his upper arm to stop him.

"What're the papers all about?"

"Things that can be dealt with on Monday."

Winry looked up at him curiously, "Why Monday?"

"Because it's Saturday," his answers were sharp and quick, "it's the weekend. It's New Years Eve. It can get done on Monday. Business gets done on Monday."

She paused a moment before deciding to voice her next statement, "I'm getting the impression it should be done sooner than that, are you sure you want to leave it until Monday?"

Edward's voice tore out at her, ripping his arm from her grasp, "I said I'll do it on Monday, so it's going to get done on fucking Monday, not before and not after."

There was nothing to see but the cold wall in Ed's eyes, and Winry let him storm past her, turning to follow him and stand at the top of the stairs. Ed got to the bottom and took a few steps away. He paused a moment and seemed to debate his options on where he wanted to go in the house. His conclusion was nowhere, and he turned for the front door again.

"Where are you going?" Winry scrambled down the stairs, alarm in her voice and her heart suddenly racing. He'd left twice already that day: once for an hour, once for three hours.

"Out," he announced once his shoes were on and his hand was in the closet for his coat.

Winry looked around frantically before grabbing her boots, "I'm coming."

"No, you're not," Ed snapped, stopping to glare at her.

"Yes, I am," she had her boots on faster than she'd ever managed before.

Again Ed's voice flared up at her, "Fuck Winry! I'm going for a walk, and you're not invited. STAY home."

"Too bad, you can suck it up," she snarled back at him, snatching her coat from the closet, "you can either walk with me or I can follow you, either way I'm coming. Deal with it."

There was a raw and corrupted flash in Ed's eyes. For a moment, and only for a brief moment, Ed considered slapping her – a reaction common to this world that had poisoned him with suggestion over time. The intent must have been written clearly on his face, because the indignant look he got back from Winry dared him to try. What a disgusting, rotted feeling that left him with. His shoulders fell and Edward told Winry she could come with him.

* * *

_8:55PM_

Two foreign people walked like a blizzard through a city that bubbled warm with life. The dark look in Ed's gold eyes tightened as he gazed around at the people mulling about this excited part of town. This country did not have any reason to be joyous, Ed concluded. There was nothing joyous in Germany right now. The country had lost the war and the consequences were ruining them on a daily scale; the whole of the country was wrought in pain, waiting to be taken advantage of. The people swam in the false hope of a new year to simply feel the joy of something again. January 1, 1922 was a good enough reason as any to celebrate nothing.

At least, it put to bed the disaster that was 1921.

Ed looked to Winry who walked along in her own little world, bundled in her winter wears. She hadn't said a thing to him. Ed's eyes mingled in the crowds again. Shops, stores, restaurants, bars, pubs, taverns, holes – they all had their doors open wide. Festive decorations and German flags hung from poles and windows. The further Ed walked, the more robust the places seemed to be.

"In here." Ed grabbed Winry by the hand suddenly, and took her inside a noisy, lively place. A drunk patron stood on stage with some friends, belting out something that wasn't German or English, singing horribly off-key. Pushing through the laughing mulls of people, Ed pulled a bewildered Winry to the bar counter. She swept the hat from her head and pulled the mitts from her fingers once Ed let go, stuffing them inside the hat. Ed slipped up onto an open barstool, Winry joining next to him.

"Edward Elric!" a voice lurched into their ears, spouting off a strange tongue of German, "what the hell're ya doin' 'ere?"

"Hey, Sam," Ed suddenly grinned, like a switch had been thrown and someone else sat next to Winry, "so you _do_ work here."

"I own this place, you ignorant Brit! What the hell are you doing 'ere?" the middle-aged man with ruffled, mouse-brown hair and a soggy white towel thrown over his shoulder leaned over the bar counter, "I haven't seen you in years. How ya been and who's yer pretty New Years date?"

"This is Winry," Ed's voice rose to stay above the crowd noise, "she's from Sweden."

"No kidding? My eyes tell me it's no lie: Swedish girls are a might pretty," the man extended a hand to Winry, who gave him an uncertain smile as she shook it, "Hello Winry from Sweden, I'm Samuel from Austria. Can I get'cha somethin' to drink, sweetie?"

Ed rolled his eyes, "Fuck Sam, she's _Swedish_, don't be stupid. She doesn't understand what you're asking."

"Well, how the hell do you talk to her, boy?" the man at the bar threw the question back to Ed with a laugh, "did ya learn Swedish too?"

"She speaks English," he drawled out, as though Sam should have known.

The barkeep's face burst open with a laugh, "A Swedish doll who speaks English out with a British boy who speaks German, drinkin' in the Austrian man's bar in Munich. Something more to add to my memoirs."

Ed laughed as the companion did, "What's on special for tonight, Sam?"

"What? You're drinking? I couldn't have paid ya to go drinkin' with me last time I saw ya," the bar man grinned, suddenly rushing away at the call of a patron.

Ed grinned, mulling his options over, "Winry, what do you want to drink?"

Winry hesitated, not certain how to answer, "I don't know. I didn't come with any money."

"Doesn't matter," Ed continued to grin, like it had been painted on, "I'll cover you."

"With what?" her expression pinched with confusion.

Ed didn't answer, he just kept up a smile to decorate the cold wall he hadn't taken down. Winry folded her arms on the bar counter and looked to Ed. He grinned back at her without substance. She smiled at him anyways, and asked how he knew the bartender. Apparently, Sam was someone Ed had met on the train when he'd gone from Rome to Munich years ago. He'd spent hours telling Ed his simple life plan of running a bar in the country where his Grandparents had lived. Sam had no plans of either being wealthy or of any note to the world – he simply wanted a tavern to baby. He'd gotten his wish.

Sam flew back to the pair on his barstools at the right side of the rounded bar counter, sliding two glasses that hadn't been ordered along the wooden surface into their hands. Two drinks on the house.

By quarter to eleven that night, Ed and Winry would lose track of how much they'd had to drink.

* * *

_Sunday January 1, 1922. 3:22AM_

"Where the hell are we?" Ed's vision futilely tried to take in the surroundings. He dangled a bottle in his left hand, his thumb in the top like a cork.

"In a park," Winry answered.

It was a quaint little park somewhere in the middle of everything. They'd walked with a parting gift Sam had given Edward to drink at around two that morning, and they continued to walk on through the night, until they'd found the park to stop at. The pair sat on the first bench they'd found.

A very, _very_ blank look hit Edward without warning, and he looked at Winry with so much confusion that she wanted to giggle at how strange it seemed on him, "When did I get to a park?"

"We walked here," she wasn't certain if she should be amused by this, or worried.

"Oh," he sounded so childish. Ed stood up suddenly, bottle still in hand, and he sauntered away from the bench, "Alright then."

Winry watched Ed meander off the park path, existing without living, before stopping when he got to a decorative white railing that kept the park land separated from a pond. Ed turned around and put his backside to the fence. A wrinkle began to crease into his face, and then another. The longer he stood there, the more indignant his expression became. He began bouncing the bottom of the bottle off the wound links of the decorative fence. The reasons crumpling his face vanished as abruptly as they'd shown up, and he returned to hold a sedated, absent look in his eyes.

Winry brushed the palms of her hands together aimlessly, looking down into her lap while she thought. She was a little envious that Ed was existing in some other state, because if she hadn't decided to stop drinking shortly after midnight, she might have been able to enjoy this faulty existence with him. But, Winry'd stopped drinking when she'd come to the conclusion that everything was wrong and nobody was stopping it. The further she moved from the stupor Ed had purchased for her, the harder she thought about what to do, and the quieter she became.

Ed had rambled along randomly amongst her thought-filled silence for the last couple of hours, and as time slowly passed by, his nonsense seemed to grow more coherent. His bottle-buddy was apparently a lot less potent than everything he had been drinking hours earlier. Winry mulled her thoughts over again and considered the time, before she finally rose to her feet, brushed her coat straight, and walked over to him. She plucked off the mittens that tried to keep her hands warm and extended her left hand when she got to Ed, "Can I see that?"

He narrowed an eye at her, handing over the bottle, "Thought you cut yourself off for the night."

Taking it, Winry tuned the bottle around in her hands. She frowned; it was cold, and the label was unreadable to her. She sniffed it and it smelt like raspberries. Curiously, she took a sip. _A fruit cocktail? _As far as Winry could tell, it was surprisingly alcohol free. Her level of respect for Sam rose a few notches, and it helped her make a decision.

Without indication she was about to do so, Winry casually flung the bottle sideways and tossed it into the stone path, listening to it shatter on the ground.

Ed's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in horror at what she'd done, "WINR—"

With that same left hand that had taken the bottle from him, she slapped him – the palm of her hand cutting across Ed's face. Ed blinked, his eyes widening with his head thrown to his shoulder and cheek tingling. A long, wordless moment occurred before his mind suddenly emerged from the shallow end of the pool it had been drowning in. He shot his head back to her, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to make sure I have your attention," she unravelled the wrap Hermann had done around her right wrist.

Ed gawked at her, his hand coming up to rub his cheek from the sting her hand had left.

Winry looked around – there was nowhere to put the bandage, so she dropped it into the light bit of snow at their feet. She looked at her wrist for a moment, twisting her face, before looking to Ed again, "Are you paying attention?"

"Yes! You fucking slapped me, what the hell is your problem?" Ed yelled at her, his fist slamming down at his side.

"I wanted to make sure you were paying attention."

There was a passive look to her eyes, and Ed glared at it fiercely, "WHAT FOR?"

He was still too burdened with alcohol to react before Winry's right hand cracked into Edward's chilled left cheek. The firm palm of her strong, workman's hand struck so hard on the cold flesh, Ed thought that his cheek had torn. His face may have been frozen, but this stung, and it screamed, and it _burned_. His jaw hung open from the shock. His ear rang, his left eye watered, and his mind moved impossibly slow to process what she'd just done and how much it hurt.

Winry shook out her right hand, rubbing the sore wrist.

As though he were larger than life, Ed's aura raged up and loomed over Winry, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

She stood before him, expression melancholy and unfazed by his outburst, not at all intimidated by him, and she responded quietly beneath his rage, "This isn't working."

Nothing could have been more efficient to extinguish the raging fire he'd ignited than her quiet words, "What?"

Winry narrowed a thoughtful eye at him, her voice carefully held in control. She'd gone over a million different things in her head since twelve thirty, now she had to find something to say, "I think if it had been anybody else other than your father, things would be different for you. But, because it's your father, dealing with his death is harder for you than you ever thought possible."

Ed looked back at her, the throbbing cheek devouring his face as he spoke, "It was my dad, Winry – the dad that left my mom and abandoned me and Al. He wasn't a father figure in my life, he wasn't anything in my life; he was just there, wishing he was."

"Right." Winry nodded slowly. She stiffened her legs and made herself stand without the tremble in her heart that this world tried to force on her, "It doesn't matter that it's your dad, he was still a person who mattered, someone who was close to you, and if you don't want it to affect you as his son, that's okay. But, as long as you are you, it's going to affect you as a person," her hand reached up, and her palm came to rest flat on his forehead, "That block in your head that's telling you that you shouldn't care at all _because_ he's your father, that you should be able to walk away from this, that you shouldn't be upset, that you weren't family, that's a load of bull and you know it. That's why you're not dealing with it, why you're trying to ignore it… because, if you look at it, the reflection might tell you that you do care," Winry's hand slipped away to join the company of her other hand at her chest, "no matter how much you want to hate him, it doesn't demean you or anyone else because you cared. You'd be less of a person if you could just walk away from his death."

At some point, Winry had expected the golden eyes that looked back at her to fade away, flicker off into the corners of the world, or withdraw. But Edward looked back at her from behind his fallen curtain of hair; she had his attention. He was listening. Winry stood up on her tiptoes, and slid her fingers into the hair that would shield his face, moving it aside so he could open his eyes and see. She gripped his hair tight.

"So, listen to me…"

Winry's voice rose in strength, in tone, and in volume. There was a messy view beyond the cracked stone wall separating Ed and the rest of the world – hurting with a raw, open sore that had been infected by an unwanted world's poison. Winry perched atop the divider and looked in.

"Stop trying to find some way to ignore how it makes you feel; it won't go away. It doesn't fit in the box with everything else you refuse to deal with here. It's too big. You can't ignore it, you can't change it, you can't fix it, you can't walk away from it, and you sure as hell can't drown it. If you don't stop fighting, it's going to break you, and you'll fall apart," like the slow deflation of a blown-up ball, Winry came down off her tiptoes. The firm grasp of her words slowly softened and smoothed as the air in the bubble let out. She let go of the grip in his hair, mind wandering lost in mountainous thoughts as she aimlessly swept the fringes aside. Her eyes came to the deepening onset of colour in the cold, left cheek she'd assaulted, and it was there where her sore right hand finally came to rest. "I can't let you fall apart, because I need you to be stronger than me. I'm terrified of what this world is, but watching you struggle with it is worse, because I don't think I know all the things I need to be yet to help you stay strong, or all the things Al's done in the past to help hold you up. I do know we won't be able to 'leave this behind' when we get home, so I need you to get over how you refuse to exist properly in this world and deal with some of it now. I think you should start with this."

The winter around them waited and watched, withholding its light breeze, careless falls of snow, and icy cold chill. Edward's hand came up and took hold of the damaged right wrist on his cheek. He cradled it loosely through the curl of his fingers, thumb holding it in place, as it was lowered.

"Wh—" Ed realized he shouldn't have bothered opening his mouth; his voice didn't work. His eyes finally broke from Winry, shifting away as he cleared his throat heavily, "Why am I responsible for organizing his funeral?"

Winry made a smile, "Because, you're his son."

Ed scoffed at the statement, sounding like he'd choked, before looking to her again, "Yeah, but I hate him."

Winry wasn't certain why she felt like laughing at the response. She rose up on her tip toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held the world tight, "Of course you do."

* * *

_Sunday January 1, 1922. 10:05AM_

The waitress leaned over the table and without a word to anyone, filled the cups of coffee for the seventh time.

"The raid just overwhelmed the facilities. People were mangled, bleeding, crying, dying, and laying in cots in halls and all over the wards. You could pick out the dead ones by who had blankets thrown over their heads. Sometimes they didn't take those cots out right away, staff were too busy with other things," Ed rambled on absently, too tired to care where his words went, slouching down in the corner of the booth with his legs fully stretched out, and his feet hanging off the end, "Dad said our immune system isn't entirely 'compatible' for this world, so when I was found in the street without my arm and leg, it was easy for me to get sick."

Winry fussed with her coffee for a moment before happily wrapping her hands around the warm cup and tipping herself up against the wall again, half stretched out along the booth seat of the table they sat at. She'd chosen a facial expression of interest and stitched it on – she was too tired to do much else.

"So, Dad said that he and Charles argued with the administration staff in front of everyone in the middle of the ward," Ed dumped some sugar into his coffee, "they made some huge, noisy scene out of it. Charles wanted me moved into a private room, because he couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me."

Winry nodded, sipping her coffee.

Ed tilted his head in thought, "I don't remember moving, exactly, I just remember ending up somewhere quieter. Dad, Charles and two of Charles's assistants looked after me," Ed scowled, again sipping the coffee, "Felt like absolute shit for weeks. That stupid cough would not go away no matter what they did. I didn't have the energy to roll over in bed, but I kept coughing," his voice trailed as he detached himself from the memory, "I think I was always coughing." Ed mumbled.

Winry grabbed a piece of toast from the table and smothered it in jam. She stuffed it in her mouth, trying to get coherent words out as she chewed, too tired to care how sloppy her manners had become, "But your dad was still taking care of you, right?"

"Well, yeah, I guess he did. For as much trouble as I caused for him, he kept trying," Ed continued, picking up a new thought, "I swear I tried to get that old man to screw off and he just wouldn't. Persistent old bastard," he spoke like he'd cursed the entire statement, then took another taste of his coffee.

Winry grinned, reaching for another slice of toast, "That's because he's your dad."

Ed's face twisted, concern and confusion crawling into the crunch at his forehead, "Well yeah, but there's only so much a person should take. I was loud, belligerent, rude, disrespectful…"

"Oh, so just like normal."

"Shut up," Ed glared at her, "I was just frustrated, and I took it out on him."

As she had been for the last hour, Winry continued to be amused at how acutely aware Ed seemed to be of his own ill-behaviour while he'd lived in London.

The conversation was ended by the clattering of people who came through this little diner's front door. It was probably the only place in this half of the city that was open, and Tilly and Hermann had finally stumbled upon it.

"OH MY GOD," Tilly screeched, "Where have you two been?" she tore a path through the building in front of her husband, opening her mouth to say something like 'you scared us to death' or 'we've been out looking for you', but she ended up dropping her expression and going with a very blank, "Good lord, you two look horrid…"

Ed grinned, as much as he could manage at this point in time, tipping his coffee cup to Hermann as the man showed up at the foot of the table. He looked up to the ticking clock on the wall of the diner, it took him longer than normal to add up the numbers the clock gave him, but eventually Ed concluded he'd been up for twenty-seven and a half hours; that explained why he _felt_ absolutely horrid.

"I'm glad to see you two are somewhat okay, at least," Hermann reached down, shoved Ed's lazy feet off the chair, and sat down next to him.

Tilly was a little bit more graceful getting Winry to sit up properly before sitting down as well, "Where did you go?"

Ed thought about it for a bit, "… Out."

"That's really helpful, Edward," Hermann's perky words dripped of sarcasm, "if you were out _all night_, what the hell did you do? Where were you at midnight?"

"I don't remember," Ed winced as he looked up in thought, "midnight happened between a bar and a park." He sipped his coffee again.

"I think you two should come home and sleep," Hermann looked between the two of them.

Ed spoke with protest, "I was in the middle of telling Winry a story when you interrupted."

"A story?" Tilly asked.

"I had pneumonia, she wanted to know about it," Ed nodded.

The husband and wife's expressions fell sharply, and Tilly again chirped, "You had pneumonia? You poor thing. When was that?"

"When I was in England a bunch of years back," Ed turned his eyes into the restaurant, so tired he couldn't focus on anything particular.

Hermann looked Ed over, grabbing his jacket by the shoulder and turning Edward a bit to give an eyeballed assessment, "Well, you survived apparently."

Ed scoffed at the statement, "Yeah, that was my dad's fault. Persistent old bastard. He tried like hell to make sure I hung around in one piece," taking the final swig of his coffee, Ed let the white cup clatter down on the table, "I'm sick of this coffee. Where's the bill?"

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

"Der gute Kamerad" translates to "The Good Comrade" and is a German military lament. If you Wiki " Ich hatt' einen Kameraden", you'll get more details!

From the very first day I started writing this fic, waaaay back when, these last two chapters were always going to happen, I just didn't know how I would get to it. It's been a target point in every outline I've had. I'm happy to finally cover it.

PS - People seem to read this story still, but most do so quietly. I'd love to hear readers thoughts more often. Reviews are good food for my pet plot bunny, and I don't bite... hard :)


	34. The Cataclysm's Catalysts

**Part XXXIV – Chapter 85 - The Cataclysm's Catalysts**

* * *

The halls of Munich's university seemed eerily quiet for nine in the morning on the first Monday back at school. Ed concluded that students and teachers were a little bleary from the holiday break and everyone was sleeping through first block classes. Edward would have slept straight on until noon if the task of cleaning out his father's office hadn't been something he'd had to take care of at eight that morning. Ed did the task in relative silence. He had a few boxes to sort his father's things into, two of which were for him to take home, and the remainder was for the faculty. Ed really couldn't bring himself to tell the distraught clerical staff that he would rather not take any of his father's belongings home. He didn't know what to do with them once he'd gotten them back to the house.

It had been over a week since his father passed away, five days since the funeral. The day of the funeral had been the most dissociated day Ed could recall having had in a long time; he'd constantly been two steps behind where he actually was, feeling like he were watching everything from the cloud of his own wake. There had been little that could be done about Winry's tears this time, because everyone around him had been shedding them too, and all Ed had really wanted to do was to scream at all of them to stop. He bit his tongue. Edward had been extremely thankful when the day finally ended.

Ed and Winry returned to their proper house after the funeral, apologizing profusely to the Oberths for the intrusion into their house over the prior few days. There wasn't a whole lot of talking that had gone on between Ed and Winry since returning. Ed surrounded himself in his alchemy notes in front of the fire place, and Winry sequestered herself away in her room with plans and blueprints she was creating. At four thirty on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Winry had come downstairs without a word and cooked dinner, served hot between five thirty and six. Other than Winry requesting Ed's presence so she could take measurements to do the blueprints of his new arm, dinner was really all the interaction they'd had. It was as though Winry had found a request Ed hadn't voiced to have some space after everything was finally all said and done. So yesterday, Sunday, Ed preempted Winry half a day in advance by having an elaborate breakfast made for nine that morning. He barked at her for gawking stupidly at the epic food display, righteously annoyed that everyone always seemed so surprised when he showed that he could cook – there had been two different women teach Edward how to cook before he'd turned twelve! The chirping turned into one of the few discussions Ed had carried on with Winry outside of either alchemy or AutoMail: a moderate argument over whose cooking skills had culinary superiority, and who would be cooking dinner that day.

Life continued on at ten to nine this Monday, when Professor Haushofer showed up to help Ed with the cleaning task, much to Ed's dismay.

"You'll be back to work tomorrow, right Edward?" the professor asked while he slid a stack of file folders into a box.

"Yeah, I'll be in," he answered. Ed had been given Monday to deal with his father's office.

"The school is actually trying to bring in someone from Berlin to fill in for your father's classes, you'll probably have your assignments continue with him," Haushofer commented, watching Ed mull about absently.

"Makes sense," Ed answered blankly, more interested in trying to find a way to make his father's tacky abacus fit into a space in a box. Why the hell did his dad have an abacus? The contraption had to have been older than his old man was.

Whether he liked it or not, Ed was an office assistant. It was an extremely humbling and _boring_ title to have on his resume, all things considered. But, unless he worked for some level of government, being the office bitch for the University of Munich's sciences department was sufficient employment, considering the deteriorating conditions of the country. Edward's main assignment was to his father, but he had delegation to other professors in the math or science departments. Now, his time would have to be split doing who knows what. Sadly, he doubted anyone would ever let him grade first year chemistry tests again without any proper credentials. Ed would concede that he enjoyed helping his father mark first year chemistry exams; it was easy and sometimes utterly hilarious. He couldn't explain how on earth some of these people made it into university.

Haushofer continued to force along the menial conversation with the Elric, not concerned that Ed had little interest in participating, "Your birthday is next Tuesday, isn't it?"

Ed stopped with Haushofer's comment. _Ah shit._

"It's your twenty-second, right?"

"It is, yeah," Ed would rather his birthday be forgotten this year. He never really did anything for it anyways; it was everyone else who thought it was a big deal.

"Well then, my wife wants to have you over for dinner Tuesday night," Haushofer announced, "between five-thirty and six. She's asked for you and Winry to come."

"What?" Ed blinked a wide expression over to the professor, "What? No. No no no," he raised his hand in refusal, "no thank you, Professor. I'm... busy."

The professor walked over to Edward and put a heavy hand down on his shoulder, "My wife is not an easy woman to argue with when she sets her mind on something, and she has her mind set on a dinner for your birthday."

"No no, really, it's okay. No," Ed did not want these people doing anything for his birthday, or want any kind of dinner that he wasn't preparing himself, or want to be sitting at a table with Albrecht Haushofer, and he sure as hell didn't want Winry in the same city district as the Haushofer troll either, "Really, I'm busy... uh, Winry and I have plans!"

"Oh? What kind of plans do you have with Winry?" the professor pushed.

"I'm not sure exactly," Ed sputtered, "Winry mentioned she'd made plans, but didn't elaborate."

"That's nice of her," Haushofer grinned, "quite brave of her to venture out and try to arrange something for you when she struggles so much with the language. Do you think she'll be taking you out for dinner? Theatre?"

"Um," Ed's gaze shifted quickly, looking for a life preserver in the moat he was drowning in, "no, I think we're staying in."

"Ah," Haushofer grinned, nodding sagely, "'plans'."

Two long strikes of the second hand ticked by on the wall clock before Ed turned a suffocating shade of deep red and screeched like a snared bird, "WHA— NO. NOT _THOSE_ KIND OF PLANS."

Haushofer folded his arms, eyeballing Edward from over top the rim of his reading glasses.

"That's just… no. No. Absolutely not _those_ kind of plans," Ed's hand waved around frantically, "those kinds of plans don't exist. Ever." He scrambled to swallow the colour boiling like a hot tomato between his ears, "I'll tell Winry we're coming over on Tuesday. I'm sure she won't mind." A lengthy string of colourful expletives tumbled through Edwards mind.

Haushofer grinned like he was satisfied with the results, nodding to Ed's reluctance and eventual answer, "And what are you doing Wednesday night?"

Ed's face soured at the continued requests for his time, "Um, my plans are in flux at the moment... why?"

"You have an invite," the professor told him, returning to the task of sorting books and records, "to one of our NSDAP Social meets."

It wasn't even half-past nine yet, and Edward's last two hours had been something of a roller-coaster. Now, the ride took Ed through tunnels that turned his stomach until he was sick, and boiled his blood on high through his veins. 'I want nothing to do with those dirty fuckers' was a statement he tried very hard not to make. Professor Haushofer was a member, and Ed didn't particularly dislike the man.

"It's a personal invite from Adolf himself, and those are rare," Haushofer gave a nod of his head, "he said that he'd sent you an invite in the mail, but there hasn't been a response, so he asked me to pass it along."

Ed stared silently at the work in his hand. The invite to the Nazi Party Social gathering had been in the mailbox when Edward and Winry returned to the house. It wasn't verbalized, but there was no doubt in either Edward or Winry's mind that Envy had some sort of hand in Hohenheim's death. The invite had been torn up and thrown in the fire. Ed wanted so badly to put his fist through the wall in frustration... or put his fist through Adolf and knock Envy from him.

"Professor, unlike my dad, I don't _do_ politics. They don't interest me," Ed finally responded with more tact than he thought he'd have available.

"It's not politics, Edward; it's a social event. A meet and greet. What connects us may be politics, but there's no political agenda," Haushofer shrugged, trying to find a way to plead the case, "think of it as one of the university club gathering for drinks, chatter, and some laughs. It's not an official political function."

The thought of that made Edward want to laugh, but an angry, lingering thought knocking on a mental door was borrowing his attention, "I'm assuming that if it's his event, Mr. Hitler will be there too?"

"Of course," the professor nodded.

"I'll think about it," Ed's eyes shifted through the emptying room that had once been his father's place of work, "I'll see how things go."

* * *

It was a child's tantrum – only because the figure throwing it could pass as a child. Dante raged around the room, throwing whatever was not held down, and breaking what was not solidly constructed. It was an excessive amount of violence from a childish figure that never shed a tear to her frustrations. She only ripped curtains. Kicking the doors to her bedroom open, Dante threw herself into the hallway, dropped to her knees, and wrapped her stout arms around the upper mezzanine rails in the prime minister's residence. She looked down to the pathetic existences that mingled below; servants, slaves, orderlies, mankind.

Dante had literally blinked and the Gate was gone. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing special, nothing extraordinary. It was an insulting experience. It was beyond insulting. The Gate laughed at her, yet again mocked her for being on the insignificant side of the Gate, and then spat in her face – it had kept Alphonse and Diana. If little fists of flesh and bone could withstand the impact of being punched through walls, Dante's frustrations surely could have managed a myriad of holes. Any return trip to the Gate now would require precious amounts of what little was left of the Philosopher's Stone, with no guarantee she'd be able to claim Diana.

Yet, none of this came close her largest and most inexplicable frustration.

Dante ran the palm of her hand down the side of her face and through her neck, until her fingers shot back up to string through the long lengths of tangled, loose hair, "Aisa, there is a story being created about how you have taken Diana out of Central for the infant's own well being."

"Understood," the nurse figure emerged from Nina's room and into the hallway light, her shoes clapping on the hardwood floor.

"Now…" the excuse was the easy part, it was the logical part, but the remainder was not, "… what the hell do I do about that baby?" she could have ripped the hair on her forehead out with the thought. It compounded the astoundingly infuriating problem of being forced away from the Gate.

Aisa's feet were again heard on the floor as the woman came to the railing, "You can use the Philosopher's Stone to retrieve her, can't you?"

Dante's tiny hands viciously gripped the railing she looked down on civilization, "Possibly. Diana's methodology is different than the Philosopher's Stone's relationship with the Gate. I don't want to waste it to find out I can't retrieve her. The Stone is too precious; we need to save it."

The nurse's brow rose at the statement, "Save it? There's plenty for a trip to the Gate."

The railing rattled as Dante threw herself back from the perch, sweeping up to her feet, "It needs to be conserved. I need to continue to conserve it."

Aisa offered, "Red stones, then?"

Dante scoffed at the suggestion, "Too unstable. I refuse to sacrifice anything because of inherent flaws in a cheap substitute."

"Then Alphonse and Diana can be considered lost?" the woman's words questioned heavily.

"Until I can arrange an alternative, yes," the knuckles on her fingers turned white as Dante clenched her tiny hands, swallowing immediate facts like a bitter pill, "Where the hell has Wrath gotten himself to?"

Aisa looked off in thought, "Last I heard he was seen in the outback of a hamlet en route to Central."

Dante folded her arms, creasing her face with her thoughts, "And Izumi?"

"Wrath is a little easier to track than she is," Aisa gave a cautious eye to the little woman questioning her for answers, "Izumi is keeping herself low, but I did tell Wrath to engage her like you requested, so assuming he's done so, she'll be keeping an eye on him."

"And following him to Central," Dante nodded as she finished the progression of assumptions, "Izumi's smart enough to know I won't be keeping Alphonse at the Empty City. She'll go elsewhere and probably seek assistance."

Looking out into the rotunda below, Aisa frowned at the busy world. The tension among the masses was thick and unstable with nerves; it annoyed her, "The situation in this city is falling apart. Central is in upheaval. Brigadier General Mustang is rallying troops in the masses, quickly too. It's unexpected."

"If he wants to play this way, I will give that pompous jackass a bloodbath," Dante's words thumped in her chest, "and stain his mittens red." As her thoughts crashed through her mind, a red light shone at the end of Dante's constricting tunnel of thoughts, "which might be very useful," the little red witch looked up at Aisa with a progressing thought, "the best way to conserve and nurture my Philosopher's Stone _is _to soak it in blood."

Aisa nodded in agreement with her mistress' line of thought; she rarely found cause to disagree, "Should Wrath be re-routed to keep out of your hair?"

"No, Wrath can be a useful distraction," Dante's hands slipped through her hair, pulling a handful over her shoulder, and began a braid, "the red stones you have, are they enough to keep Wrath active for a while?"

Hesitating, Aisa thought the question over, "More will need to be extracted. Anything taken previously was fed to Wrath."

Dante laughed suddenly – it shivered through the air, drifting wild and bitter, frustrated and angry, "Then, when I extract more red stones for Wrath, I will take a portion of Philosopher's Stone as well for myself, and turn two exercises into one."

The announcement brought uncertainty into Aisa's tone, "I thought we were preserving the Stone?"

"I said we were conserving the stone, there is a difference," Dante feigned childish delight in the weaving exercise of hair through her fingers, "I need some for myself in the interim. I'll look good in a little red necklace. You don't mind, do you Aisa?"

The woman looked back at Dante like the question of permission was asinine, "I would never mind."

The little devil began to take herself back into the bedroom, her aura trailing behind her like a poisonous red filth dispersing into the pure air. Silent again, Dante paced through the childish room, throwing away the weave she'd wound through her hair. The demon's childish voice began breathing heavily, her feet thundering down harder with each step she took. Dante's hands slowly began to fumble atop her bed of hair, like the frail legs of spiders dancing over her. The fingers trickled down, sliding through her neck before advancing over her shoulders, dancing down her arms, until her hands leaped to her chest and clawed heavily down the front of her body.

The most outrageous concern the Gate had forced upon Dante was beneath her hands. When the devil's fingers could go no farther, they snapped away, like mud had been slung from her body.

Without warning, Dante flared out like an explosion, fanning her flames through the bedroom, throwing her rage around in a wild tantrum. Behind shut curtains and beneath dim light, items shattered without care. She did not discriminate with her destruction of the room – none of this façade mattered. It could all be reconstructed, like the effort of creation or malice of destruction meant nothing – this entire inanimate pretence could be fixed with the simple clap of her hands.

The only thing that could not be reconstructed with the clap of her hands was the only thing that mattered.

Aisa stood, undisturbed, unaffected, and uninterested in Dante's actions, "Miss, this won't help you. It might make things worse."

"WHY!" Dante screamed, "why is this body rotting, Aisa? It should _not_ be rotting. Nina was perfect! There was no original soul in this doll for it to cause me to rot. There is still NO inherent soul in this doll to cause me to rot, yet, I'm rotting," the little girl's arms flew out in shrieking rage, "I stood at the Gate door with that Elric and my beautiful key, and then _something_ happened, something came through the Gate! I felt it pass through me, and I blinked, and in that pinpoint of a second, I left the Gate. Now, I'm rotting. _Again_."

Taking an audible breath through her nostrils, Dante threw her disgusted gaze away from anyone who could possibly be looking at it, even from the sight of her inanimate toys and animals.

"I don't have time to deal with this bullshit," she snarled.

* * *

Beyond some cursing and swearing, when Ed locked himself down in front of the fireplace with his mountain of alchemy paperwork, he was usually pretty quiet – like some child trapped in a fascinating book. Five, ten, sometimes twenty different permutations of any number of formulas were scrawled out, and discounted. Ed could clearly remember being a child, and looking at alchemy texts, and at worst it would take him five shots at a complex transmutation circle before he'd draw something that worked perfectly. Last time he'd taken five shots at an alchemy circle, he'd been nine years old. Now, he had a mammoth brainteaser without a finished result to target.

How to get home?

How could a world with so much information, so much untapped knowledge, not have a single shred of information or plausible formula that brought him even close to getting home. Even if he had something remarkable, like the Thule Hall, he had no way of making it work. He could regard the Thule Hall as a magnificent nightmare, but no matter how flooring the place was, he still had no way of making it work. It degraded the magnificence down to insignificance. This world was maddening. It didn't help that both last night, and this night, he'd been astoundingly unfocussed. There were… things to worry about.

Winry's footsteps echoed from the stairwell through the house. Ed glanced back over his shoulder, hearing the faucet in the kitchen run before the sound of her footsteps drew closer. With a clipboard in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and a measuring tape slung over her shoulder, Winry came up to what she'd affectionately dubbed 'Fort Alchemy' and looked over the scene, "Are you…" she eyed the miserably frustrated look on Ed's face, "in the middle of something important?"

Ed shook his head.

"Can I borrow you for a few minutes?" Winry smiled.

"Sure," Ed stood up, pulling out of his fortress of white sheets of paper, and stepping into the real world again, "what's up?"

Winry used her clipboard to gesture to the couch, "Sit, I need your left hand," she placed her glass down on a coaster.

Ed shuffled around the confines of the living room, trying not to disturb any mountain he'd created, or any piece of furniture he'd moved to accommodate it. He plunked himself down on a sofa cushion, as did Winry next to him. Handing over ownership of his left hand to Winry, Ed sunk into the sofa and looked back on his fortress with a loud and disgruntled huff.

"Not going so well?" Winry asked, wrapping the measuring tape around his index finger.

With a near snarl, Ed's upper lip rose and the bridge of his nose wrinkled, "Not exactly."

"What's wrong with it?" Winry pushed a little.

Ed's face transformed with a scowl, "Everything…"

Winry scribbled down a few measurements from his left hand, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm almost done with the core work on your new arm."

Ed sunk a little deeper into the cushions, putting the heels of his feet up onto the coffee table, sounding somewhat absent, "That's good."

With a few scratches of her pencil, Winry continued to jot down her numbers, "That leg you've got on was easy, it's not networked into your body, you're just wearing a sleeve. It's a huge challenge trying to work out an arm for you that's not… well, up to Rockbell AutoMail standards. I've been so spoilt with Granny, it's been kinda frustrating having to figure out all the ways to improvise to get something functional that you can use here. It's like two hundred years worth of technological setbacks I have to work around."

"You know what you're doing, Winry. You'll figure it out," Ed's words were again lacking of attachment to the conversation as well as enthusiasm.

Winry shook her head and put her pencil aside, resting Ed's left hand down on the clipboard. Without Winry prompting conversation, the room existed in perpetual silence, like it had for nearly the entire week prior. The only two things that existed beyond their own breathing were the ticking wall clock and the contained sound of the fireplace. The distant and detached moment easily lingered on. Ed's limp hand rested on the clipboard of AutoMail notes, and his focus slowly vanished into the corners of the room. The clock chimed in for seven o'clock that evening, and he finally recalled his focus.

Ed's face soured, and he slouched a little deeper into the couch. He snatched up the clipboard and looked at the measurements Winry had taken. Ed twisted his face at the information and dropped the clipboard to his lap; AutoMail jargon was out of his league. He held out his hand in front of himself, palm forwards, and narrowed an inquisitive eye. He saw a hand with a thumb, four fingers, a few blood veins and crease lines; he could rattle off the chemical compositions of the flesh, blood, and bones, but he had no measurements for the size. Winry's hand came up into the picture; she lined her palm up to the bottom of his and held it for comparison's sake. Ed's brow rose at the result, his hand surprisingly dwarfed hers… well not Armstrong or Sig kind of dwarfing… and his father's hand was undoubtedly bigger, but Edward's own left hand was a lot bigger than he would have expected.

"Last time I made you an AutoMail hand, I don't think it was anywhere near that size," Winry spoke with a near laugh.

There was a section reserved in the back of Edward's mind that he kept for the mental smashing of all things relating to the term 'small', and his big hand gleefully smashed the word like an overzealous child in a lively game of whack-a-mole.

"Hmm," Ed lowered one eyebrow, keeping the other peaked with interest, "your pinky isn't straight."

Winry's laugh sounded foolish, taking her hand away and looking at the odd bend to her smallest finger, "I uh… smashed it up in my workshop a few months ago."

"Ouch?" Ed winced a little.

"Big ouch," Winry rolled her eyes at herself, "absolutely my own fault. I just lost concentration and… yeah, Granny had to finish my commission." She gave a sheepish shrug to her accident.

Ed smirked, nodding slowly as his smile faded into the palm of his hand, now resting on the clipboard in his lap. Winry reached out and took hold of the top of the clipboard, sliding it out from Ed's possession. The Elric's eyes followed the diagramming of his hand as it moved, "I'm going to a NSDAP event tomorrow night."

Winry paused, running the statement through her mind, "… Isn't that… Hitler's group?"

Ed lifted his eyes, drawing his focus in to Winry, "Yeah, it is."

"Why?" her voice burst from her throat, doing everything in her power to sully the concern in her tone, "Envy's there, Ed. We don't know what else he's capable of."

"That's why I'm going," Ed's jaw stiffened with his response.

As the end of Winry's voice lingered on longer than Ed's, Edward began to wonder if maybe she was regretting waiting around patiently enough to hear his thoughts. From the corner of his eye, Ed caught Winry sinking down into the couch cushions as he had done earlier, wrapping the clipboard into her chest.

"Hey, don't worry," Ed tried to lift the room as he watched it sink, "there'll be a bunch of people there. I wouldn't go if the situation was too dangerous."

"Envy used that man's hands to kill your dad, didn't he?" Winry made the statement abruptly, without any preamble, hesitation of thought, or deep breath. She stated something both believed to be something of fact, yet neither had addressed.

As far as Ed could tell, Winry's words sounded more hurt about the circumstances surrounding his father's death than he was outwardly feeling. Ed's emotions on the issue, for the most part, were piled in a hastily transmuted, angry black cauldron that he glared at in his mind – because in that mind, Edward Elric could still do alchemy. He'd had to pack the issue away to some extent; he couldn't just leave that kind of a mess laying around. It was hard for Edward to look inside that container - trying to figure out how or what he felt for the man and his death was more challenging than the mountain of alchemy he was cultivating. Strangely, it was just as hard not to look in it. It had no lid. Things kept dribbling out. Some things even jumped out if he wasn't paying attention. Edward had times when, for some reason, he'd find himself with an overwhelming urge to investigate the cauldron… and he'd peek… but to acknowledge things… that was… just…

Ed sighed despite himself, his brow fusing together with an array of wrinkles and creases, "… I'm going to see if I can find that out. If he did it, I want to hear him admit to it."

… _hard._

Winry untangled herself; the clipboard wrapped into her body coming off her chest and landing in her outstretched arms. She pulled to her feet and smiled, "Make sure to tell me how it goes, okay?"

Ed nodded.

Winry spun the clipboard around in her hands before nodding and taking herself back to the staircase, "Gonna finish these up and we'll go shopping for your parts on the weekend, alright?"

"Okay…" Ed replied, glancing over to the glass of water Winry'd forgotten on the coffee table.

* * *

Hakuro walked down a long, endless corridor in the mid-day instability that was slowly weighing down Central City headquarters, putting it precariously atop pins and needles. The officer swept his hat from his head and wrung it in his hands. These days were just getting worse and worse. It had been a week since he'd seen his family and honestly, he'd sent them away. No official order had been given to the people of Central to leave, no one was willing to admit that the stability of the people, the government, and the country was falling, but instinct told the officer to tell his wife to take the children and visit extended family far from town. He'd never felt like he'd ever had such a poor grasp on a situation before, a situation that included his own officers. Allegiances were divided, unclear, or secretive. Trust had failed, and it wasn't just the military allegiance that seemed to be falling out of the ordinary.

Hakuro entered the office he'd taken away from Mustang – a coveted room that had somehow escaped assignment to government ministers and remained in military control. Mustang was rarely afraid to tout that when reorganization of Central headquarters was brought up. When the door had clicked shut again, the senior officer stopped in his tracks at the middle of the dimmed room. Curtains had been pulled, lights had been turned off, and in the cold leather chair at the office desk was an unwelcome sight blowing lazily on a flickering little candle, teasing the flame with his breath.

Dressed head to toe in his full military garb, hat tight on his head, and hands dressed in white gloves, Roy Mustang gave the 'superior officer' his flattest stare as his chin teetered around in the palm of his left hand, "You finally showed up," he grumbled.

The corner of Hakuro's lip twitched, "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Considering how important you are, I'd have thought you'd be a little more timely," Mustang chomped his words, disinterested in the question.

"Security is at the end of this hall, Mustang," Hakuro's brow lowered, "one call out that door and you'll be in cuffs before you know what's happened to your ass."

The Flame Alchemist snorted at the threat and straightened himself up, "Use your high ranking brain and think of a reason why I'm sitting here waiting for you, Hakuro. You think I'd show up to talk to you here, in the middle of Central, with people out looking for my head, without a damned good reason?"

Taking a deep breath, the higher officer stiffened his jaw, staying back from the desk and ensuring his position was between Mustang and the door, "You showed up to flaunt your new found allegiances in my face?"

Mustang tilted his head in thought, "Yup."

Hakuro scowled at the response, "Are you proud of yourself?"

Mustang laced his hands together and dumped them down on his desk, "Oh hell yes."

"Congratulations on your promotion to the rank of Anarchist, Roy Mustang. You're throwing your precious country back into chaos," Hakuro turned up his nose to the man seated before him, "for what, your own dictatorship?"

"Yes, and I'm not proud of that," separating his hands, Mustang put his palms down on the desk and pushed to his feet, "but from the last time the country fell out of a leadership and until now, we've always been lost in anarchy and dancing like puppets, we were just unaware of it. Democracy has been faked."

Hakuro scoffed at the statement, "Is that how you're going to explain your actions? Is that how you console yourself without the glorious title of State Alchemist?"

"Since Bradley fell, the last nine months have been an illusion created through complacency and neglect, misery and the need for retribution," Mustang folded his arms. Stepping away from his desk, he expertly walked around it, like the locations of every object on the floor had been memorized, and he needed neither eye to navigate, "and within the chaos, the diversions, the governance that rose from the ashes, the shield of the State Alchemists Ishibal hearings… while all attention was diverted…" Mustang reached a gloved hand into his chest pocket, and pulled out a photograph, holding it like a playing card between two fingers, "Dante reemerged."

Hakuro's heavy brow rose, "Dante?" The sound of loss and confusion flooded his voice for the single word.

"The irreverent Dante," Mustang's gaze sneaked to the photograph in his hand, eyeballing his wild card with intrigue, "she has been the catalyst and conductor for this country's fate for quite some time."

"Pardon me?" Hakuro sounded like he'd choked on his confusion.

Clearing his throat, Mustang lowered his hand from the field of vision, "Dante is a five hundred-year-old, body-snatching alchemist utilizing a Philosopher's Stone, readily performing types of human transmutations for her own benefit," the alchemist nodded at his description, "by the time the regime change came, she'd created a figure for herself that walked alongside Sebastian Mitchell, propelling him into power with every right word, and every in-route she knew mankind could give her," the thumb of the alchemist's free hand hooked onto his belt, "that's what Dante does, Hakuro, she manipulates people for power. She's been doing it for hundreds of years," Mustang watched, withholding his triumphant smirk at the dumbfounded look that was surging through Hakuro, "and when the figure at Mitchell's side could no longer suffice, she stole the body of a little girl."

Mustang extended the photograph to Hakuro. Gingerly, the officer accepted the handout.

"This is… Nina," Hakuro spoke, lost in a matter-of-fact state, "with Edward and Alphonse Elric… and the Hughes'?"

"Nina Tucker," Mustang amended.

"As in, Shou Tucker?" Hakuro looked up from the photograph, "that family is dead. Nina Tucker is long dead. How can the Prime Minister's daughter be in a photograph with these people? Is this doctored?"

Mustang scoffed, "Do you think I have time to figure out how to doctor a photograph from Mrs. Hughes' photo album?"

"How could the same child be in this photo?" Hakuro's words spun through the air, "Nina Tucker's body was defiled; I've been given access to the records. This is impossible. You're accusing a child of being some kind of atrocity."

"Nina Mitchell is adopted, isn't she? Have you ever bothered to investigate the child's history? Mitchell certainly didn't have time to – it was his wife's job. Funny how that works," Mustang grabbed hold of the spinning thoughts, and threw them into reverse, "I'm accusing Dante of defiling that innocent little girl's life, by becoming the puppet master over the soulless doll that remained of her, and slipping into the child's persona like you or I slip into shirts, for the sole purpose of obtaining superior power over everything we know, and everything we don't."

An abhorred silence fell between them - ugly, warped, and rotting. It lay like a dead animal at their feet, waiting for the carcass to either be run over once more, or indiscriminately tossed into the roadside and ignored.

"That's disgusting, Mustang."

"What's disgusting is that we keep falling for it."

Again Hakuro's voice flared up, "Have you no shame Mustang? The girl is a child!"

Mustang stopped, something in the back of his head slowed his retort. He eyeballed the officer standing before him, boiling in the moisture of the summer air. Mustang settled himself, calmed his flame, and lowered the temperature of the room with the smooth, sweeping recapture of the photograph from Hakuro's hand, "You have to stop thinking like a father, and look at the evidence. She is a monster, with the face of a child. That negates anything childish about her. And from what I've heard, she can clap her hands for alchemy with more skill and ease than you or I have ever seen Edward Elric do."

Hakuro stood caught in the audacious headlights of Mustang's continued words, "Have you been bewitching all these men and officers into believing in this for your asinine cause?"

"I've told the right people the truth," Mustang's voice fell over Hakuro with a heavy weight anchored to the core of the world, "The whole truth. I've told them about Dante. I've told them what's been done. There's more to this story than this conversation Hakuro, a lot more," his hands slipped into his pockets, "whatever men choose to do with that truth, however they choose to interpret it or share it with their troops, subordinates, colleagues, co-workers, companions, spouses… that's for each person to decide on their own. But, one of Dante's greatest strengths has been that none of us knows. We don't want to admit that something like that actually exists. I won't allow her to use that ignorance against us any longer. If everyone knows, if I shatter her illusion, she'll have nowhere to hide, and this country can be taken from her."

"You showed up here, today, to tell me this fantastically perverse fairytale?" Hakuro questioned Mustang like he were laughing at the man.

All that was given in response was a shrug of, "Yes, I did," but the Flame Alchemist soon gave an addition to his reply, "I'm confident in believing that you may be one of the few people left in Central with a fully functioning mind. You aren't a complete mindless drone – willing or unwilling. I'm warning you that little monster is walking around at your knees with more skill in human transmutation than any person could think possible. She has a Philosopher's Stone to fuel it. I'm giving you fair warning to get the hell away from this."

"And if I ignore all this?" Hakuro chomped back.

Mustang's brow bounced a little, like he'd expected his words to go unheeded, "Oh, look at that… it's time to go," the alchemist's gaze suddenly flew beyond Hakuro's shoulder, "Major!"

A hand gun cocked into place behind Hakuro's ears; the man froze.

"Please, General, just stand there and admire my desk for a few minutes. You've done such a nice job clearing it of paperwork for me, it's a lovely sight to behold," Mustang grinned hotly, sliding the photograph into his breast pocket as he walked past the man invading his office, lightly brushing shoulders with him as he strode away.

* * *

"Wow! Edward Elric!"

Ed wanted to turn around and bang his head into the wall. It was the third 'wow' in the last five minutes, and by far the loudest, shouted by Hess from the other side of the dining hall. Deliberately, Ed held the blankest and most disinterested expression he could muster as random eyes flickered on and off of him. With almost childish enthusiasm, Hess appeared in front of Ed, hands coming down on his shoulders.

"I'm beyond impressed, Edward. In fact, I might be flabbergasted. What part of hell froze over that brought you out for our Social?" Hess beamed.

Ed's eye twitched, "I needed a change of pace, I guess."

Hess gave a nod and looked into the hall, "I have a table near the front. Come join us."

This was the NSDAP Social, one of the Nazi Party's more cordial engagements. Edward wanted nothing to do with this place, but here he was, though Ed sorely wished he could sink into the earth and slip away. He'd have to settle for getting lost in a crowd. Edward wanted to have a good look into Envy's eyes to see what he could see in the homunculus' mind, and gauge the current situation. Apparently, Envy wanted the same from him, considering the invite, and Edward had no problem engaging in a glare-down. This was the best way to do it: in a hall full of people. Considering the ratty metal doors he came in through, this place actually looked like a buzzing banquet hall; people mulled around, chatted with each other, and were generally content to be self-absorbed in their own little worlds.

Ed followed Hess and the pair made their way through people mulling around tables and chairs. Ed threw one drunkard an odd look when the man shoved a bottle of beer into his hand. A table came into view for the approaching duo, and Ed took a disappointing look ahead; Albrecht Haushofer sat with a dolled up girl on his arm, chatty as ever. The Elric couldn't tell if she was a young thing trying to look older, or a twenty-something with the face of a teenager. Ed swallowed a swig of beer, and reminded himself why he was here. There was a uninteresting round of introductions conducted by Hess, interrupted a few times by a drunken young Haushofer who gleefully told a few impossible tales of the Elric and the 'robot arm' he once had. Ed wondered how much of a scene it would cause if he whipped the beer bottle into the young Haushofer's face.

Ed sat at the table for what felt like forever, looking around the bustling room, at a menagerie of lives socializing. Everyone was everywhere, and some people were mentally nowhere. What an annoying charade. Ed wrinkled his nose, his eyes angrily flipping around the hall.

"What a pleasant surprise," a heavy voice sounded off like a deep drum beat behind Edward's ears. Ed jerked in surprise.

Hess's voice rose up over everything with a call of 'Fuhrer'. Ed slipped into a lazy slouch in his chair, taking a few swallows of the beer handed to him earlier. Edward watched Adolf walk out from behind him, drawing people to him like flies drawn to the sweet smell of a trap, and chat emphatically with them as he drifted through the crowd like smoke. The Elric's eyes managed to capture a picture of the moment Adolf's gaze crossed him. Strangely, what Ed saw, or thought he saw, was something he hadn't anticipated. One part of Ed's mind told him to get up and leave the party _now_, while the other wanted desperately to know why he'd been given such a vile glance. Hitler had looked at Ed, for only a moment, like he'd been repulsed to see him. Usually, Envy looked at him with pure hate or vicious hunger. This was different. _What was that for?_ Then, the feeling got worse.

"And, if I can be excused for a few moments," Adolf finished his circle, coming around the table and putting his hands down on the corners of the back of Ed's chair, "I would like to have a few words with Professor Hohenheim's heir, Edward Elric, who's gracing us with his presence tonight."

"What?" above and beyond being called away, that was the most ridiculous way of being addressed Edward had ever heard. Again, Ed twisted his look up to Adolf, who hung his grin over the Elric like a raw slab of meat teasing a voracious appetite below. Slowly pulling to his feet, Ed kept a conscious thought of how dangerous bait usually was, perfectly aware he was following it like a well-trained animal. He moved away without anyone's continued interest, in fact Hess seemed to react like he'd known it was coming. The two men walked away from the table without another word to anyone.

Ed followed Adolf briskly. Wordless steps of two men marched away from the gathering and down a lengthy hall lit only at either end. Their shadows raced ahead of them as they entered, and by the time they were emerging, those same shadows were clawing back behind them. The hallway opened up to a pool of blue light, lit by an expansive wall of tinted glass windows ushering in the midnight moon. The two men remained silent, wading around within the churning ocean of night.

This was the front entrance of the banquet hall. The 'Social' had been using the back door. Ed smirked at the thought this party had been relegated to the rear of the building.

"I'm surprised, Edward. I expected to hear from Karl that you'd refused the invitation," Adolf's voice carried a low echo.

Ed snorted, "I was in the mood for something different. You people seem so friendly and _nice_… Winry and I could use good company like this."

Adolf scoffed, the choking sound burrowing its echo into the threads of the carpet floor, "Are you patronizing me?"

"Did you kill my dad?" the Elric son threw his blunt question out point-blank, not interested in bitter prattle.

"Is that what you came here for?" Adolf's brow rose, his upper lip shifting at the question, "Are you looking to avenge his death?"

"Hell no," the look in Ed's eyes standing firm as his hand slipped to his pocket – the absence of his right arm masked by thick shadows in the moonlight, "revenge doesn't get you anything. I'd just like to know if it was you."

"I did not kill your father, Edward Elric," Adolf tipped his head to the side, furthering his statement, and shedding the shadows masking his face, "Envy did."

Ed's golden eyes held the man's smug answer in contempt, "Don't be arrogant, you two are one and the same."

With the swing of his right foot, Adolf changed his posture. The man threw his chest up and open to the evening light as he began to walk forwards, "It has taken me days Edward, _days_, to recover from your plague."

"My what?" Ed tilted his head in confusion.

"Your plague," Adolf began to pace slowly, his fingers weaving together, and his head bobbing with each heavy step, "the baggage of filth you deposited in my Germany."

Ed eyed Adolf's slow and calculated steps. The dictator's feet made no sound on the carpet. Edward watched the deep black shadow the man cast move with every motion Adolf made, stretching out dark and long through the floor, "Did some voice in your head tell you that I brought the plague and infected you? Envy tends to be full of bullshit."

"Envy was the plague," Adolf announced like an explosion, "the plague you pointed here! The one that besieged me!"

Ed lost his words entirely for a moment. His wide, yet suspicious, golden gaze held Adolf at gunpoint interrogation, "You got rid of Envy?" Ed was somewhat torn, but not surprised – Envy had been evicted before, by a lesser man. Some part of Ed's mind wanted to say 'congratulations', and another part was deeply concerned with this conversation, "or are you just playing around with me for shits and giggles?"

"I think you should be careful how you speak to me, Elric."

"I think you should answer my question, Hitler."

The slow crawl of a grin traipsed its way into Adolf's face, "I like that; you have strong eyes. But, why are they yellow?"

Ed narrowed those eyes with no response.

Adolf threw his head back, his voice rising with each sentence spoken, "You can pretend that you're German, but you aren't even English. I may have been put at the mercy of your family's plague, but for the time I was ill with it, I took so much from it," the man's arm flew out, a stiff and accusing finger pointing Edward's way, "and I learnt that you are someone else. You are something foreign, something alien to me, and you place your existence above and beyond all of ours," Adolf snapped his arms out wide from his shoulders, hands fanning out at his sides, "this… this magnificence that I am trying to establish and build is not good enough for you. You see yourself as better than everything here, do you not?"

"No," Ed's golden eyes shone brighter than all the light in the area the two men stood, "I just don't want the life offered to me here."

"Do you understand the kind of tarnished human being you are?" Adolf spat his words, hissing as he continued, "how could you possibly think you are entitled to anything better than this? Your arrogance is so shameful you should not be allowed to lift yourself from the earth at my feet. You are not deserving enough to eat the same bread as me. That hollowed disfigurement at your right side reminds people of that every day they see you."

The Elric didn't glance to the space where a right arm and shoulder should have been.

"Edward Elric, Envy is quite gone and I do not care to know where. I will be the one controlling my hands, and therefore I will be the one controlling my fate, my people's fate, this country's fate, and I will control and orchestrate your fate down to the very last breath you take," Edward finally got to see that the shadow Adolf cast was made up of the poisonous excrement Envy had left behind, "You have no place in this world, and if I were to analyze how you live your life, I'd say you know that. You no longer have the luxury of hiding in your father's protective arms to do whatever it is you do to find this 'better life'. The reach of your arms… or arm… is not enough for either you or your companion to hide in."

The dark shadows of Adolf and Edward moved suddenly, crashing into the wall with Edward's forearm running up underneath the chin of Adolf's flat and unfazed expression, "You listen to me, and listen good. You have a problem with me, fine, take it up with me. I'll take you on. But, if you bring Winry into this, I will rip your balls off and shove them down your throat. She's innocent and she's got nothing to do with this, am I clear?"

"From what I understand, her mere presence with you absolves her of innocence," Adolf narrowed an eye, not showing the least bit of interest in Edward's threat, "you are intriguing, Edward. Envy may have sparred with your father, but you prostitute yourself to pride, greed, and wrath. Are you okay with these indiscretions?"

Edward's weight fell heavily on the arm pressed against Adolf's throat, "You don't know anything about me." Ed pushed himself away, releasing Adolf with a shove. The heavy thump of Edward's polished shoes thundered along the carpet of the entrance way, his jacket flaring out, and his dark shadow stretching out forever behind him, "I'm done with this conversation."

From beyond the Elric's shoulder, a powerful voice bellowed, "I am in the business of cleaning up the filth that plagues Germany, Edward Elric."

"GREAT," Edward's left arm thrashed about dismissively as he stormed away, "I'll call you when I need my toilet scrubbed!"

* * *

Bursting into the air from a tangled ball of tall undergrowth, Izumi's left foot landed squarely on a hefty, thick branch of the tree she scaled. With a swing of her upper body and spring in her knees, the woman thrust herself upwards, her hands grappling with another thick branch, deep in the tree's foliage. Izumi hung there for a moment, before finally snapping her hips, swinging her legs up, and thrusting herself upwards yet again – swinging around the branch, and coming to land like a well practised gymnast. Izumi was quite impressed with herself, she had to be a good nine or ten meters in the air, and there was still a great deal more of this tree to climb. Sitting quietly, catching her breath, the teacher listened to the sounds of the woods settle back into their places. Her ears canvassed the forest's sounds, listening for the distinct sound of Wrath's heavy approach.

"Where did you go?" he called out, almost like a song had been sung.

Izumi took very deliberate control of her breathing, Wrath's voice allowing her to place his direction in the woods.

It was like a game of cat and mouse, and Izumi was willingly and knowingly playing along. If she could keep Wrath busy, the fewer problems he'd cause, and the more time she'd have to sit atop trees and figure out what the hell she was suppose to do about everything else. And as much as the boys had wanted to relieve her of the burden of the living sin, Wrath was still her uncomfortable responsibility.

The teacher's eyes scoured the myriad of greens and browns fluttering in the breeze, searching for a dark mop of hair to appear in the cracks, or for the stray strand of sunlight to reflect off a deteriorating AutoMail shoulder. It was Wrath's mechanics that eventually gave him away, and Izumi watched as the creature moved himself through the shrubs and heavy plant life below. Izumi corralled her breath, holding it in her chest when Wrath stopped beneath her. She watched the creature give a sniff of the air, and then sharply look up to her.

"Hey!" the homunculus exclaimed with a sharp, toothy grin, "I see you!"

Izumi released her breath into the woodland air, "Did the Red Stones heighten all your senses, or just the ones you use for hunting?" she put a hand against the thick trunk and rose to her feet, "I'd still like to know where the your stones came from."

Standing below, Wrath's hands came to his meagre hips and he shrugged, "This conversation is getting old. I told you, Dante extracted them for me." The forest took a sharp breath as the riled homunculus reared back his AutoMail fist and slammed it into the trunk of the tree.

Izumi took hold of an upper branch, and pulled higher within the leaves of the old, shivering tree, "Extracted them how? From what? Red Stones are procured."

"Give me a good reason to tell you," again, Wrath's fist slammed into the tree, mercilessly pounding a hole through the thick trunk.

From her perch, Izumi tried to look out from beyond the higher canopy of leaves, wondering how the tree would fall once Wrath was done carving it out… and why the forest seemed to vanish in the east, "You're telling me that Dante has a stash of Red Stones just to feed you with? And she's pulled them out now, after how many months of starving you?"

Wrath's shrill laughter shook the woodlands harder than his fist shook the tree, "The Red Stones aren't for me. I just get the leftovers."

Izumi's frown tightened, "What are the Red Stones for then?"

"What good reason did you find to convince me to tell you?" Wrath's arms flopped to his side while he twisted his neck upwards to spot Izumi.

"Why does Dante have them when she has the Philosopher's Stone?" Izumi called down to the creature.

Wrath only shrugged in response, throwing back his fist, locking his shoulder, and thundering his arm through the thick trunk of the tree again. He grinned a little when the wood began to groan, "Why not?"

Izumi rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth as the tree's balance began to give way, "This was so much easier when you didn't talk back."

A final, heavy fist slammed into the tree, and the hundred-year-old growth began to topple.

As best she could, Izumi scrambled up higher into the branches as it began to tip. She felt and heard the crack of the wood, the crunch of branches, the rush of the earth, and the general cry of the forest as the tree fell, crashing through everything in its wake. Scrambling through the out stretched arms of the ancient tree, Izumi leaped from the branches before it hit the ground. She grabbed at a few surrounding tree limbs to slow her fall, but ultimately hit the ground, shortly after the old tree. The teacher tumbled, head over heels, and rolled to her feet. Izumi turned herself from jungle cat to sprinter, bolting forwards – east – and away from the destruction, not bothering to place Wrath. The woods cleared suddenly, opening the world up to the bright, afternoon sun, and Izumi skidded to a halt. The treetop canopy of the Amestris outback continued on thirty meters below, at the bottom of the cliff the woman stood atop. Izumi allotted herself a second to glance back, catching the obvious motion, and sound, of Wrath barrelling through the forest towards her. With a deep breath, the wiser of the two jumped off the side of the cliff. Izumi's hands slammed together as she began her fall down the rock face, and reached out for the cliff wall – the spark of her transmutation erupted. The teacher's feet quickly came down on a lip of transmuted rock, her body sinking to it as her knees bent beneath her. Izumi's hands searched the wall of rock, gripping tightly to a dangling tree root, clenching her teeth and stiffening as she felt the definite 'whoosh' of Wrath as he fell past her with an angry scream. She looked out, entirely unimpressed that Wrath had been so eager to catch his prey that he threw himself after her. Izumi winced and looked away before she could witness the homunculus bounce off the lower slope of the drop, and tumble to a tangled mess on the dirt below. Izumi released a breath she'd forgotten she'd held.

"I haven't had this kind of exercise in years. I'm going to have to make an appointment with my masseuse," Izumi rolled her shoulders, hearing them crack, before another clap of her hands gave her a much easier set of footholds to climb back up the rock face with.

Hauling herself back up to the ledge, the teacher again looked over at the unmoving homunculus, waiting for Wrath's stones to lurch him back to life. Again, Izumi chose to clap her hands, and she placed them down on the face of the rock cliff she looked over. Her transmutation smoothed over and polished the rock, free of any blemish, leaving it as slippery as a sheet of ice, and impossible to climb up. Izumi raised her brow once Wrath began twitching like a seizure ridden animal. The creature's reaction soon sullied, and the little forest terror pulled to his feet.

"You cheated!" Wrath hollered, pointing to the sheer and smooth cliff.

"Yes, I did," Izumi's barked down to the wilderness nuisance, "and you can't do transmutations without Ed's arm and leg," her eyes shifted, looking out over the expanse of treetops that filled the valley Wrath had fallen into, "SO," she bellowed, "why does Dante have both Red stones and the Philosopher's Stone at her disposal?"

The child sized golem screamed to the sky, before coming to glare at Izumi hovering above him, "Why should I tell you? So you can starve me from them?"

The teacher bobbed her head at Wrath's expectations, "That's the idea."

Rage in the valley began to settle and Wrath began to look about for another method of escape, "I'm not sharing anything with you."

"Should I be asking Aisa?" Izumi watched the creatures actions stop, and redirect up to her, "she's the one who fed you, right?"

The toothy grin reappeared through Wrath's face, begetting smugness, "Yeah, why don't you go ask Aisa?"

There wasn't a single syllable Wrath had pronounced that encouraged Izumi to take up the task. In fact, his dare had done a marvellous job dissuading the teacher from hunting down the woman. Izumi thought her own reaction over and frowned, wondering what the hell Dante was hiding with her personal escort, "Alright then, well, you hang tight down there and apologize to the trees for all the damage you've caused lately. I know two botanical alchemists who might try to kick your ass if you don't." The teacher pushed to her feet.

"You can't leave! I can't let you leave!" Wrath's scream echoed off the polished face of the cliff.

Izumi lowered her voice, available only to her own ears, "Which means you have instructions to keep me entertained. The last person you spoke with was Aisa, so she should be the first person I find."

Without any further acknowledgement to Wrath's existence, Izumi walked away from the cliff hovering above the valley, ignoring the creature's raging screams as she left him there.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

**

* * *

Author's Note:**

I think it would be absolutely hilarious to see the comments Ed leaves on really lousy Chemistry exams.

Mustang is none too pleased with Hakuro for taking his office.

I like the idea that, to a point, Adolf liked having Envy in his head – Envy has 400-something years worth of knowledge on how to orchestrate mankind, how to control them with words, suggestions, and subtleties, which are all things Adolf can use. But, I also like the idea that Adolf will not allow _any_ entity, regardless of who or what it is, control his actions. He's too proud for that. When Envy got a foothold and used Adolf's body as the physical means for killing Hohenheim, Adolf wasted no time in finding a way to remove Envy from his mind (which is do-able). Envy knew this would happen (even mentioned it to Hohenheim before he'd died), but didn't care because he gotten the opportunity to kill Hohenheim, and he was more than happy with that.


	35. Atrophy of Mankind

Warning: For violence and blood in the latter half.

* * *

**Part XXXV – Chapter 86 – Atrophy of Mankind**

* * *

An excited knock came from the front door of the house – the kind where the knuckles bounce off the wood childishly. Winry slipped her way down the stairs, dropping her clipboard to the bottom stair without any clatter, and drifted to the front door. With the quick unlatch of the lock she poked her head into the January afternoon.

"Albrecht!" Winry blinked in surprise, looking around the porch, eyeballing the beaming young Haushofer and Rudolf Hess who accompanied him, "What brings you by?"

"Rudolf told me Edward was sick and not to work today, we have come to see how you and he are doing!" Albrecht glowed happily like a delighted puppy.

"Oh, uh, no he wasn't feeling good this morning," Winry glanced over her shoulder, wondering if Ed was paying attention to the noise at the front of the house, "well, don't stand outside, it's cold," with the wave of her hand, she ushered the two men into the house.

"Have you been doing your best to help him feel better in his time of need, Winry?" Hess asked, slipping in ahead of the younger Haushofer as Albrecht pushed his knuckles into Hess's lower back.

"He's usually pretty good at taking care of himself," Winry smiled at Hess's heavily accented English – at least his method of speaking was more like Hitler's and less like Albrecht's – she preferred hard to understand English as opposed to stupid English.

Shaking his head, Hess stomped a dusting of snow from his boots before smiling up at Winry, "Well, that's quite a shame, I'm sure you give excellent care."

Winry watched Albrecht stagger while pulling off a boot, stumbling into Hess's side carelessly. Winry pinched her face and turned her head down the hall, "Ed, there's company here."

An indistinct string of curses flew out, and a flurry of papers exploded from beyond the end of the hallway.

The eldest of the two guests grinned. Hess removed his hat form his head and tucked it under his arm, all the while eyeballing the excitement at the opposite end of the house. He watched long enough to see a disheveled Elric lumber into the light. An unimpressed curl came into Hess' face as he looked Ed over: dressed in heavy black sweats, worn out old sleep shirt, and unbound, uncombed, and untamed hair. Rudolf's words became German, "Aren't you ever presentable when you're home? I swear the last few times I've been by this house you've looked nothing short of street urchin. A lady lives under this roof too, you know."

Ed gave his best rendition of a grumbling boar, scowling his way further into the hall.

Albrecht shook his other foot free of his winter boot, smiling down the hall at the approaching Elric, "Good afternoon, Ed." Albrecht quickly turned the smile onto Winry, put a hand on her hip, drawing up her hand, leaning in close, and put a kiss to the back of Winry's right hand, before sweeping himself deeper into the house, leaving his "Good afternoon, Winry," echoing in the hall.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Albrecht?" Edward squawked madly at Albrecht, the younger man grinning like a cat guilty of eating a canary.

"You're such a schmooze," Hess' laugh echoed through the house as he followed Albrecht.

"He's a womanizing son of a bitch," Ed's eye twitched as neither man paid any attention to his remark. Ed peeked over to Winry's sheepish-looking expression. She quickly huffed and decided that the task of organizing the winter boots on the entry mat was an excellent use of her time. Ed sputtered out of the hall, and fizzled his way into the main room, astoundingly annoyed at the late afternoon interruption.

Hess' laugh died as he eyeballed the paperwork chaos spread out over the floor, on the tables, and on all the seat cushions, "Seems you're doing better now than when you called in," he shot a doubtful gaze to Ed as Albrecht began poking at paperwork thrown about.

"I had a stomach bug," Ed snarled, stomping over to Albrecht to remove his paper pickings and return them to where they belonged, "and I still do. So if you don't leave, I might begin suffering from projectile vomit. Maybe you two should find some other house to invade."

Like a fascinated child, Hess' brow rose as he began collecting sheets of Edward's work, "I'm quite intrigued with our invasion of Elricland thus far. What on earth is all this?" he turned the sheet from the relative right side up to upside down.

"Stress relief," Ed's eye again twitched, snaking his way from Albrecht over to Hess, once again reclaiming sheets of paper.

"No, Rudolf, its alchemy. Have a look at some of this," like a giddy child, Albrecht began flipping through a pile of sheets on the end table, "I knew you dabbled in alchemy, but this is crazy. I've always thought you were hiding something…"

"Oh for the love of… PUT THAT DOWN!" Ed barked, under-arming a cork coaster across the room at Albrecht. All Edward's words did was encourage the two men further, both eagerly flipping their way through papers while Ed mentally ripped the stuffing out of the couch with his teeth.

"Are you trying to turn lead into gold?" Albrecht grinned, sifting his way deeper into Fort Alchemy, "let me know how to do it when you figure it out."

"That's not what I'm doing," Ed grumbled, storming over to Albrecht and hauling him out of the alchemy world by the collar of his shirt.

Hess snapped his fingers, "I know, you're trying to reach Shamballa!"

"What? No," Ed rolled his eyes, booting Albrecht closer to the hallway, debating if he wanted to tie the annoying Haushofer up with the lamp cord, "this has nothing to do with that. Look, do you two buffoons want the formula for turning lead into gold? Cause I know that one. If I give it to you, will you leave?"

Hess took his collection of gathered paperwork and wandered over to Ed, "That sounds fascinating Edward, but since the formula for turning lead into gold came out of your mouth like it had no value to you, this must be far more intriguing," he shook the papers in his hand, "what, praytell, are you actually doing?"

Ed snatched the papers from Hess and tossed them carelessly over the back of the couch, glaring at the man from beneath his brow as white sheets fluttered into silence. With a sudden smirk, an annoyed sarcasm drawled out in Edward's voice, "I'm trying to make a magical door appear in the sky that has bright sunshine, clear blue skies, lush green grass, and rainbows leaking from it…"

The two invasive men rolled their eyes in unison before Albrecht's eyes slipped to Hess, "Is this considered mockery, or is he just being an ass?"

"It seems our well-wishing appearance is not appreciated," with an animated shrug at the emphatic enunciation of his words, Hess turned away from the room and took himself down the hall to the front door, Albrecht following behind.

Ed's voice carried on through the house after the two men, "Hey, I don't barge into _your_ house and make a mess of your homework."

"You don't go to anyone's house, Edward. You're perpetually anti-social," Hess twisted his nose, slipping his hands into his pockets, casting an eye into the kitchen as he passed it, watching for a moment as Winry made herself look busy within, "Anti-social with an asterisk."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" the Elric pulled himself down the hall, like the crushing force of a collapsing landslide forcing everything away.

Both men looked at Ed with a profoundly unimpressed gaze, before Albrecht turned to Hess, "Remind me why we gave the idea of checking up on Edward any value?"

"I think we gave Winry all the value," Hess's brow rose.

"OUT," Edward bellowed, finger pointed.

With the loud and abrupt instruction, both men ushered on their boots, gave a few dismissive comments to Ed's abhorred behaviour, and let themselves out of the house – ending their impromptu interruption with a rush of cold air as the front door shut behind them.

Ed's eye twitched at their departure and a narrowed gaze snapped to the kitchen, eyeballing Winry's movement throughout, "What are you doing?"

"Alphabetically arranging all the spices on the rack," Winry's voice pitched sharply, "for some reason your dad didn't keep all the spices _in_ the spice rack!"

Edward's shoulders fell, sliding his attention from the kitchen back into the living room. His eyes rolled with his swinging head, and the Elric pulled himself away, stomping back into the centre of the alchemy universe in the main room, detesting the thought of having to reorganize all the papers that had been moved around.

* * *

A hole was being paced into the floor. People had tried, but no one could stop it. Again and again dark brown shoes repeated their path – it was the only impatient solution that could tide Russell Tlingum over until…

"Your telegram is here, Mr. Tlingum!" a voice called as a hand slapped down on the hotel's check-in countertop with the sheet of paper.

"Thank you!" Russell called, freeing himself from the path of his pacing, and rushing to the counter to claim his prize. He snatched up a typewritten sheet of paper in both hands, and the young man's excited eyes scanned it over. A smug, hot grin bubbled through Russell's face as his pleasure rose, "Gotcha." He spun on a dime and began bounding up the stairs, leaping to every third step, "These people are going to owe me a freakin' pay cheque!"

At the second floor, the eldest Tlingum shot down the hall, skidding to a stop at a sealed door. Russell took a moment to breathe, straighten himself, shake out his shoulders, hold his chin high, and casually knock on the door.

"Yes?" Mustang's voice bellowed from inside.

Russell's hand fell over the doorknob, and he let himself into the 'war room' – Mustang's interim solution to command central until 'Central' was commandeered. The fluttering white sheet of telegram paper preceded the eldest Tlingum brother as he sauntered in.

"Hey!" Russell sounded off happily, eyeballing two former State Alchemists – Mustang and Armstrong, "How's the siege going? Sunk any battleships yet?"

Mustang shot a look across the room with his one eye that could have set the boy ablaze for his distasteful question, "What do you want?"

Russell laughed nervously, and shook out his telegram, "Gillian Atropos."

"Who?" Mustang raised a brow at Russell amidst an impossible amount of papers that haunted him wherever he went.

"Gillian Atropos, 32 years old," Russell snapped the sheet of paper back to eye level, "worked for Mugear as a research assistant for six years in the Xenotime upper core, where Fletcher and I were. She was part of the Red Water project. Can't say I talked to her much, but I recognize her," his eyes quickly skimmed the sheet again, "um, her parents died of Red Water poisoning. And Gillian Atropos herself died two months ago in child birth," the young man shook a shiver through the sheet he held, "You know Ms. Atropos as the Prime Minister's nurse, 'Aisa'."

Mustang's hands gripped the table edge, and he disengaged himself from his work.

Armstrong's eyes puzzled over the statements made, moving over and towering above the suddenly miniature Tlingum who most willingly handed over possession of his prized telegram to the officer, "Does she have a husband?"

"Doesn't list one. Says she's single," Russell shrugged, "one night stand?"

A deep, noxious intake of air was drawn in through Mustang's nostrils as he inhaled the room. It felt dirty to breathe with so much filthy information in it; the thoughts carrying in the wind were so corrosive sometimes, "How old is Diana?" he asked anyone who would answer.

Armstrong took up a bundle of papers in his other hand, flipping through to make sure he had his answer, "Now? Approximately two months."

"Hm…" Mustang exhaled the filth from his lungs, "What's the baby's name in that report?"

The eldest Tlingum's eyes shifted, "It doesn't list one. It just indicates that mom and a female baby died in childbirth."

Snatching up a rolled sheet and dumping it onto a clear table, Mustang swept open the sheet and pinned the corners down. He folded his arms, and curiously dabbed his interest in the woman at Dante's side, "If we add in Gillian to our time line, I suspect we'll see Aisa hired on sometime within the last two months. So, why would Dante go all the way to Xenotime for a woman and child?"

"That's an obvious answer," Russell pointed out, "largest documented location of Red Water production ever recorded was in Xenotime."

"Yes, and obviously Dante had a hand in that," Mustang retorted, "but, why waste time and effort if you're in Central to pick up a pregnant woman in Xenotime and make her disappear? Dante already has the Philosopher's Stone, why would she waste her time on the substitute? Red Water production has been declared illegal by law, and Xenotime is heavily monitored because of that. I don't understand the connection," Mustang shook his head, stepping away from the table and out into room. He glanced up to the towering Armstrong and took the telegram from the officer's possession. Mustang's own eye scoured the typed document of basic recorded details from the Xenotime Municipal Records, catching the wilting Tlingum stepping back to lean against the wall, "what are we missing, Mister Tlingum?"

The young man's eyes shifted. Russell slipped himself to the door, and quietly latched it shut. He paused everything about himself for a moment, thinking his words through, before stepping away from the sealed frame, "Do you know the best way to crystallize red water and create an imitation Philosopher's Stone?"

Mustang's eye shifted curiously, "I have some vague information on the crystallization process."

Clearing his throat, Russell folded his arms, "The one easy, sure fire way of crystallizing Red Water is perverse."

Without moving, Mustang began to tower over the young man, "I think I need to know."

The Tlingum swallowed heavily, "If a pregnant woman drinks the water throughout her trimesters, the water leeches into the placenta and crystallizes during the fetus' growth. It slowly poisons the mother, and the baby usually ends up dying shortly after birth, if it's born at all," he ran his hand harshly through the hair at the back of his neck, "If you start at week three, the placenta crystallizes perfectly. If the red water treatment starts before that, the baby will choke to death on the crystallized placenta before it's ever born. You'd have to castrate the mother if you want to use the Red Stones, because they will have crystallized into the wall of the uterus," Russell shifted his balance between his feet, "all kinds of Red Water pregnancy treatment boils down to: dead mom, dead baby, some degree of Red Stone."

"Sweet mercy…" Armstrong stuttered, seating himself, "that's abhorred."

"I agree," Mustang shook the unsettled look from his expression.

"Some sick pervert in Central conducted that experiment years ago," Russell tossed his head aside, a sour look invading his face, "as far as I ever knew, no one managed to convince anyone in Xenotime to conduct the experiment properly. Non compliance cost people their lives."

Mustang took a step away from his stance, shaking the heavy weight from his shoulders. He moved his feet along the wood flooring of the room as he reexamined the telegram, "Aisa couldn't have been party to that experiment though; both she and the baby are alive."

"Well," Russell's hand's flew out, his tone sarcastic, "what better explanation for a crazed alchemist to make the trek out to Xenotime than to fetch a blooming experiment coming to term," Russell clapped his hands together heavily, shrugging his shoulders at a pair of aghast looks that befell him within the room, "yeah, I know. I'm a ray of sunshine in your day. You're welcome."

With the abrupt shake of his head to throw Russell's chirps from his ears, Mustang sighed and brought a hand to his forehead, "Somebody needs to find out 'why'," he looked back into the room, "_why_ would Dante want something like that if she has a Philosopher's Stone?"

All the Brigadier General's question would receive for an answer would be silence.

"Alright, so we're going to need to confirm if Diana is Aisa's baby, and if the woman was used at all for any Red Water experiments," the senior officer grumbled at his side challenges, "Russell, take your brother back to Xenotime and research this woman for us further. Find her doctors, her medical records, her grave, 'exhume her'; do everything you can."

Slitting his eyes and pinching his cheeks, Russell gave a pointed glare at Mustang, "Is this your way of ordering me out of Central?"

"Yes," Mustang answered abruptly, "your place isn't here during our mission. You're more useful elsewhere, and in less danger. Take Roze with you, she doesn't belong in this mess either," the officer's gaze slipped down to the table, and allowed the timetable he'd comprised on Dante to roll back up, "our march through the southern quadrants of Central begins tonight. Get your ass out of here before the sun sets."

* * *

From the depths of a little family shop opposite a hardware store, the AutoMail mechanic had requested a handful of Marks for a non-mechanical purpose. Ed's eyes mingling in the people traffic as he waited outside, finally able to refocus his attention when Winry merrily came out of the shop, a glass bottle filled with a thick brown liquid dangling in her hand. She stuck it under Ed's nose.

A malicious sneer drew across Winry's face, "You should try some. It's good."

"Are you kidding!" Ed sputtered, backing up, "it looks like liquid shit. I'm not drinking that." What an absurd idea. What a preposterous notion. "Who the hell thought they could put chocolate in milk and make an improvement?" Ed looked genuinely distraught over the expense of perfectly good chocolate.

Winry popped the cap off, turning her nose up at Ed and sticking a straw down the bottle's neck. She pinched the bridge of her nose and slowly slipped her lips over the end of the straw. Ed's eye twitched. A deliberate glint sparked in her eyes and she began making a long, loud, dramatic, and drawn out example on how to swallow more than half a bottle of chocolate milk through a straw in only one breath. Ed recoiled, his eyes rolling in disgust, and he shivered himself away from the vile act. Winry came up for air with the loud smack of her lips.

"AH!" she breathed loudly.

"I'm going to be sick," Ed twitched.

"Come on you big baby," Winry grinned, leading their march across the street, "We have more to accomplish," she shook the rattling bag of improvised AutoMail supplies hanging off her shoulder as she crossed. Stepping up onto the other street side, Winry looked up at the door chime that rang overhead as she entered an exhausted looking hardware store.

Today was the day Winry was picking up the beginnings of the materials needed to construct Edward's new arm, and this trip was specifically for his hand. When Ed asked earlier why she'd decided to start at the hand, and seemingly develop her construction from the outer most extremity inwards, Winry stated that she was saving the best part for last – the shoulder port and socket. Ed reminded Winry that the 'best part' was the most painful part of all, and got back from her a glowing, passionate description of why she took great pleasure in the blood-rushing, religious process of wiring together the focal point joining man to machine, and how important it was to do it right. After a few more words and a number of blank stares, the conversation degraded to a point where Ed informed her she was, in fact, a masochistic machine freak.

He spent the next hour icing down the lump on his forehead.

Winry drifted through the store to collect what she could from her list. Edward remained near the door, perched at the storefront window like a mannequin, holding surveillance over the society outside as the world walked by. Ed never did bother keeping track of how long it would take Winry to pillage any particular hardware shop, but she seemed to be mastering the talent, since it felt like she was getting through each location quicker and quicker. His eyes flickered back to the store when Winry shuffled up to his side.

She looked up at him sweetly.

"What…?" Ed asked suspiciously.

Winry's blue eyes shifted before whipping up a pair of needle nosed pliers, "Told you I'd find ones better than what you and your dad have," she beamed, "can I have them?"

Ed rolled his eyes, muttering a string of inaudible words before reaching into a pocket for his wallet, "You done?"

"Yes," she grinned, taking the non answer as a yes, and snatched up the money Ed handed to her.

With one last glance at the world from the window view, Ed slipped his good hand back into his pocket and walked over to Winry at the clerk's desk as she stuffed her purchase into the burlap bag. The hardware store's door rang with chimes when they left.

In the nippy winter air, Ed drew up his hand and narrowed an eye as his index finger canvassed the streets, his attention falling to a four-way corner at the opposite block, "Next store is on the other side, half a block up."

Winry adjusted the bag on her shoulder as they began the walk, "You know, when I get finished with this AutoMail arm of yours, I'll deserve an award!" her hand suddenly flashed through the sky, "Winry Rockbell: AutoMail Miracle Worker Extraordinaire. Improvisation Queen of the Year! One of those better come with a shiny plaque."

When Edward neither quipped nor acknowledged the audacious statement, Winry looked to him. Ed's narrowed eyes were still locked ahead through the streets, his presence darkening, unable to disengage from their intended direction.

"… Shit," He stopped.

"Ed?" Winry tried to look ahead and see what had his attention.

"Sturmabteilung," Ed's heavy voice growled through his breath. With a strong push with his next step, Ed turned himself and Winry around before she'd had a chance to visually analyze what lay ahead, "Move your feet, we're going this way."

"What's wrong?" Winry sputtered, unnerved by the sudden change, "you just said we need to go that way."

Edward's breath could be seen in the cold winter air as much as it could be heard, "I'll explain in a minute."

Edward grabbed Winry by the hand and suddenly vanished between two rows of buildings, disappearing into the stone shadows. He pulled Winry through the ice and sludge of the alley, stumbling to the back service road behind the business streets. Trudging across the unkept service road, they once again vanished into the shadows of buildings, emerging onto a street-side two blocks down. Ed didn't stop; he wove their path across a street of stopped traffic. At the corner of a block, Ed turned their advance sharply, and vanished behind a heavy set of building doors. Edward and Winry stood a moment in the main floor of a white office building, no one paying any mind to the pair who'd burst in. Again in motion, Ed led swiftly through the centre of the building, following as much of a straight line path as he could make, before exiting through the building's rear door, and stepping down into the snow and sediment of the building's private service alley. The building's door slammed heavily behind them. Ed and Winry finally stopped.

"What the hell was that all about?" Winry sputtered.

"Sturmabteilung," Ed looked around at the loading and delivery doors of the street side shops, "they were down the street; one was watching us. We should go home."

Winry baulked, "… Stermawhat?"

"Nazi goon squad," Ed's eyes flickered to the exit they'd walked through, "we don't want to be out while they're trolling."

Winry looked back at him silently for a few moments. Ed was wound tight by the presence of people she knew nothing about and couldn't pronounce. Winry couldn't say it felt very comforting to have him reacting out of sorts and the fact they were Nazis meant that they worked for Hitler. Winry's eyes lowered to the hand still in Edward's possession, "Does that mean Envy's after us now?"

Edward shifted at the question – he hadn't discussed his encounter with Adolf Hitler and the state of Envy with Winry yet. He'd meant to, he'd wanted to, but Ed never got so far as opening his mouth to the conversation. Ed cleared his throat, "It's something like that."

"Okay, then let's go home," Winry adjusted the strap of the bag over her shoulder – if it was this concerning him, she didn't want to be out, "I have enough to get the ball rolling on your arm."

Ed nodded and led Winry down the path from the stout alley of loading doors to the service road behind the strip of businesses. His feet stopped, straddling the wheel grooves dug into the unpaved back road. Winry stopped at his shoulder when Edward's advancing motion ceased, his body stiffening as their pairs of eyes looked up and down the road.

Edward's brow tumbled, "You asshole… you don't waste any time, do you?" he grumbled to himself.

Each end of the road had a man standing squarely in the way, arms folded and feet shoulder-width apart. Imposing men's chests expanded with their deep breaths, stretching the fabric of brown, button-down coats. Each man stood large in their lifeless browns, almost identically trimmed, and more than firmly built – the perfect representation of a Sturmabteilung officer from head to black-toed boot. They were an adopted force made up of thugs, bar brawlers, and storm troopers. They were flesh projections of immovable walls.

"Winry, get back in the building," Ed ordered, his hand drawing up and pushing against her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she stepped back at his urging, looking towards the metal door of the building.

"I'm going to deal with this," Ed hissed, his teeth clenching as the two men slowly drew to life, "I just need you to _get inside_. GO!" He watched Winry turn and move towards the door, her mitten-worn hands clamping down on the handle. His eyes drifted to the men who approached slowly, teasing him, daring Ed to make a hasty move – it would be easier for him to chose a path and deal quickly with one man than wait until they drew together as two.

From behind Ed's shoulder Winry screamed; a sound that exploded the entire world around them into action. He looked to witness the thundering crash of the metal door swinging wide. Ed bolted towards the building's exit as Winry fought the hands on her coat and in her hair. The two flanking men in the back road moved to follow Edward, chasing as he disregarded their presence. The flying Elric wrapped his arm around Winry's waist and put his strength into her fight.

When a fourth man appeared beyond the open building door, one of the four unidentifiable voices boomed through the alley. Winry was released, and both she and Edward tumbled to the ground in a heap.

* * *

The Prime Minister's office looked like it had become something of a debacle. Paper and people had been distributed everywhere. The last time Hakuro had been on the offensive, Fuhrer Bradley had been fantastically organized and skillfully knowledgeable about his pending engagement.

Although he'd chosen to support it, democracy… _this_ democracy… looked astoundingly weak. It certainly had to be why Drachma continued to attack their north – those people were like ravenous desert birds, they could sense frailty. If it weren't for the Briggs mountains, this country would have collapsed months ago.

But, those countries that existed in democracy had encouraged Amestris, and they'd encouraged Hakuro to support it. They warned this nation that 'this transition is hard', but if you endure, you will get through it. As things stood now, with Brigadier General Mustang lurking and waiting, with the military broken into factions, with the general public tangled in fear… democracy was in danger.

This 'fake' democracy was in danger.

General Hakuro let the door to the Prime Minister's office shut silently behind him. He watched from afar as the head of the Central City Municipal Planning Department marked out a series of pivotal city points in a red pen on a map.

This wasn't like Ishibal, or Lior, or any other historical conflict. This city, this pivotal central point in this nation, was devouring itself. This wasn't Central overrunning another group of people – Ishbalans versus Amestrians – this was Amestrians versus Amestrians. The conflict was internal. The conflict split the people. It weakened the nation.

A conflict brought on by this 'fake' democracy, supposedly orchestrated by the same person who'd orchestrated all the others.

Hakuro's hand clenched around the documents he held and marched into the room.

A map that looked more like a blue print of Central had been unwound and held down over a large fold-out table. The room was full of people Hakuro didn't particularly care to have social contact with. He couldn't say he knew the municipal planner, but he knew he didn't care for the upper echelon of the police department, or head of national security, or the head of national defence – which was, annoyingly, a division the military now answered to. Hakuro had tried to convince himself that if these men were put in a pinch, 'national defence' would find a way to effectively assert everyone – he had a hard time trusting that blind faith.

The officer eyed the municipal planner as he rolled up the sheet of city prints and hand it to a representative for national security. Every other department was already in possession of a map. Hakuro made a fairly safe assumption that the final rolled up paper tube on the opposing desk was going to be his. The city planner continued to talk to the department heads, waggling his red pen, while the officer moved deeper into the room. Every department head and their accompanying subordinates were enthralled in the discussions being held, Prime Minister Mitchell included.

"Hakuro!" Mitchell finally noticed him, and everyone rose from their zone.

The officer cleared his throat and spoke gruffly, "You asked to see me?"

"Yes!" Mitchell moved and began an explanation about why he'd summoned Hakuro, but Hakuro stopped listening. Nothing the prime minister could say would explain why Nina Mitchell, or Tucker, or whomever this child was, was in the room – her presence coming into the light as Mitchell stepped away from her.

"Sir?" Hakuro stopped the chattering man with a bark, "why is your daughter here? This is no place for a child."

"Ah, Nina," Mitchell looked over to her and smiled, but the little girl was not looking back – her eyes were focused in the discussion of men; wide and enthralled, "she was supposed to leave with Diana, but she fell ill. Poor thing has developed some rashes on her body. We wanted to make sure she's fine before she travels."

Frowning, Hakuro flipped his attention between the man he spoke with and the little girl, "Shouldn't she be at a clinic then? Or a hospital? If she's contagious at all, she should be quarantined."

"She was at the hospital earlier," Mitchell nodded, "but she's been released. She's no danger to anyone."

"So, why is she here now?" the General again questioned the presence of the child in the room.

Folding his arms, Mitchell took a moment to think over the answer, like there wasn't one readily available, "Because I feel more confident in her safety if she's with me. This city isn't in the best of conditions."

Hakuro wouldn't argue the state of the city, that was for certain, but… to have no one, not even an advisor, send the child away? Give her toys to play with on the floor. Let her sit with the secretary and hit keys on the typewriter. Children should be protected from war, not standing alongside it. Hakuro shook his head, "What did you need me for?"

Leading the general back to the table, Mitchell picked up the final bound tube of city planners work, "Deployment and strategic defence outlines are being issued to key departments in the event Mustang acts before we can eradicate his influence."

What the hell? Hakuro had been in the military since he was 17, he was a _General_, he was obviously more than capable of laying out his own strategies, "I'm sorry, Sir, why was this drafted without me?" How insulting – he should have been the one to draft the bloody thing.

"Because the military does not run this country anymore, General," one of the men surrounding the table trumpeted.

"We're involving you now, Hakuro," Mitchell nodded, ushering the officer into the circle of things as the final roll of city planning was laid out on the table.

Voices rose again; ignorant voices telling Hakuro how best his 'division' would protect the city of Central. How degrading. The officer struggled to hide the displeasure in his face. Who the hell were these people compared to him anyways? Hakuro wasn't one to be shy of pompous arrogance, but really if you're going to be facing an upheaval lead by a military man, wouldn't they have sought his military input first and foremost?

Without warning, a smiling pair of eyes lit up at Hakuro's side, the officer looked down in surprise, "General Hakuro is making faces, Daddy," Nina piped up.

The general's eyes narrowed.

"Please focus, General, your input at this point is important," Mitchell instructed harshly.

_Why wasn't it important before? _Hakuro tried to wipe all expression from his face. Do these people truly have no experience? Shouldn't someone be addressing what the hell happened in the mountains? The sudden Drachma surge had retreated, the rage from their nation's government screamed of incredible alchemy, and a former State Alchemist and his troupe had fallen off the radar. Hakuro looked down at the little girl at his side, "This isn't a place for you right now, Nina, please let us do our work."

"You don't seem very happy about your work," Nina blinked a round set of eyes to the man sadly.

Hakuro's attention fluttered between the girl and the room. He had two children and never in his wildest dreams would he bring them into a setting like this. This little one existed like a ghost, no one paid any mind to her, where she stood, or the things she said. And everyone continued to talk around her like her presence didn't matter, "Conflict isn't a happy thing, Nina."

A bright smile flashed into the girl's face, and she clapped her hands with excitement, "I know what'll help!"

With snap reaction faster than Nina could have avoided, Hakuro had seized the child, grabbing the little girl's forearms. The sealed brown envelope in his hands fell to the ground and Nina gawked up at him in surprise.

"HAKURO!" Mitchell yelled, his hands slamming down, "what are you doing!"

_Well, now the little thing matters. _The general's brow creased and the prime minister of his country was ignored. Hakuro crouched down in front of Nina, "I don't have time for your games, Nina, this is an adult's world with adult things, and I need to focus without your assistance."

Nina gave a tug to her arms, "I just wanted to help. DADDY!" the child cried.

"General Hakuro!" Mitchell stormed around the table, throwing a hand to one of the officer's arms, and ripping him away from Nina with a vicious amount of force, "you do not handle my child that way!"

Hakuro straightened himself and barely grumbled an apology. He snatched up his envelope, took a step back, watching the little girl brush her hands off on her dress with a formidable scowl to keep her company, "May I have a moment of your time, Mister Prime Minister? Alone?" Hakuro asked.

"You want a moment of my time?" Mitchell snipped with ruffled feathers, "I want a moment of your time, now!"

Mitchell led Hakuro away, leaving behind the government chatter and angered little girl. Hakuro's attention veered to the envelope of papers in his hand as the two men moved, "I have a few questions I'd like to run by you sir, before we get down to business."

Mitchell's gaze snapped over his shoulder to the officer, "Questions about what?"

The general held up his envelope, unwinding the sealing string as the men walked, "Lieutenant Havoc's police case file regarding Winry Rockbell for starters… I've found a number of discrepancies."

* * *

Edward and Winry scrambled off of the slushy surface of gravel and snow, coming up to their feet, both backing away from the gathering of four indistinct men. Once again, the building door thundered shut.

"_We have a message to pass along to you,_" someone announced.

"_It takes four of you to pass along one message?_" Ed breathed heavily, tucking Winry behind himself, "_How many of you are needed to change a light bulb?_"

There was an indignant pause in the wake of Edward's remark, and some sideways glances, before a chorus of laughter flew up loudly between the cement walls of buildings.

"Ed?" Winry's voice quietly rose from behind his shoulder.

Elric eyes shifted through the unfolding scenario; thinking, planning, and trying not to be as concerned as he knew he should be, "Stay behind me and don't let them near you. The moment you see an opening to run, take it, and get as far away from here as you can."

"What are you going to do?" the concern in her voice pitched.

"I'm going to talk with these assholes," Ed returned to addressing the crowd of men, "_Yeah, so what's this about a 'message' for me?_"

One body lumbered forwards, followed shortly by a second drawing to action. Ed stepped forwards with the dip of his absent right shoulder, and spun away from the first charge. Like every step he'd take was choreographed, Edward moved fluidly – reaching back, grabbing the man by his shirt collar, and pulling around the brown-shirted terror into the path of the second assailant.

Edward was spun around from his open right side by a surprise hand of a third man. Ed's left hand snatched the wrist of an oncoming fist out of the air, and with a heaving motion through his shoulder, Ed drew the man towards him, cocked his arm back, and put his own vile fist squarely into the centre of the assailant's face. Ed reared his arm for a second shot, but was stopped when a heavy hand grabbed his elbow from behind and the captor's arm jarred up under his chin. One of the four men saw the opening on Edward and swooped in with two punches to his face, and the bottom of a boot to Ed's stomach. Before any further punishment could be dealt, Ed was released with a loud 'clang'. He staggered away, looking back to see Winry throw her arms over her head, and again strike down on Ed's momentary captor with the rim of a garbage can lid.

Winry looked sharply to Ed at the end of her follow-through, gave an underhanded toss of the lid, and Ed caught it cleanly. He turned and charged towards the first brown-coat assailant standing in his sights. Rather than using his metallic aide as expected, Ed dipped down and ploughed through the man's legs with his shoulder, then hip, spraying up the alley's winter slush as he moved. Edward rose sharply, flipping the assailant head over heels, and dumping him to the ground. With his movements once again fluid, Ed spun on his heels, firmly gripped the handle of the trash lid, and smacked the flat underside into the face of a reappearing combatant. The assailant staggered back and the lid was flung aside. With a thundering step forwards, Ed's left arm roared back, his feet gripped the ground, toes curling in his right boot, and Edward again slammed his fist into an assailant's face.

Without warning, a hand grabbed the flying golden ponytail and hauled Ed backwards. A foot roared in and pushed out the knee on his faux left leg. Ed's good left arm was seized and twisted behind his back. The cascading capture finalized when a foot came down heavily on Ed's flesh ankle, pinning him on his knees. Edward was forcefully straightened upright with a fierce yank on his hair, and before he'd had any chance to react, someone's angered fist began crashing through Ed's face, multiple times, before the solid toe of a boot swung in and buried itself deep below his ribcage. Ed's body heaved from the impact, his hair was released, and as he collapsed forwards from the strike, a heavy fist crashed down over the back of Edward's head, bouncing his forehead off the packed gravel road. A white light burst through his eyes, before everything went to black.

For a length of time Edward could not define, there was neither sight nor sound.

Sound was the first thing to appear in the dark void, garbled like a poor gramophone record. Edward's ears picked up a few indistinct voices, unable to decipher what had been said.

With his left fist shakily sliding through the mess of snow, ice, gravel, and sediment, Ed tried to lift himself, fighting the angry disorientation depriving the world of balance. His ears heard the surroundings better than he saw them as his eyelids lifted. When Winry's screaming suddenly broke through his ears clear as day, the static cleansed, and he caught the crisp sound of the bag of shopping supplies being thrown, and the contents crashing into the winter alley sludge at everyone's feet with a clatter. Edward took two heavy breaths before pushing his shoulders clean off the ground. His forehead remained connected to the pavement through a dark stream of blood that poured to the earth. Ed pulled his knees under himself, put his forearm against the running leak on his head, and tried to spot Winry by her cry. She was found in the corner furthest from him; the four brown, burly men had devoted their interest to Winry, her coat off her shoulders and beneath someone else's feet. One man stood behind Winry, his arms wrapped under hers, hoisting the girl up off her feet as she struggled, legs kicking and flailing to fight back the second man in front of her.

It was a bizarre sight of mounting danger that did not register as being real, and was terrifying enough that Ed did not realize it would have the ability to stop time as abruptly as it did.

And Edward Elric moved faster than the grinding, squealing metal gears that struggled to push time forwards. He scrambled on hand and knees, through the mess of hardware supplies scattered about. Nearly on his feet again, Edward snatched up the discarded trashcan lid and hurled it at the collection of thugs, watching it bounce off one man's side. The action took focus off of Winry and brought it back to him.

With a sudden thrust of her legs amidst the distraction, Winry popped free of her captor's grasp, landing on her hip on the alley floor amongst the scattered collection of AutoMail equipment and parts.

Ed turned over his left shoulder to reposition himself as one of the four men approached with haste, only to lose his balance at the sudden movement. He tumbled to his knees again, falling below an arm that swung out for him. Ed's hand swept through the winter sludge on the unpaved ground as someone's grasp returned to his hair. The first thing the Elric's fingers touched was what he picked up for defence. As Edward was hauled backwards by his hair, his hand clenched and arm locked. Before anyone or anything could strike again, Ed turned his shoulders and buried Winry's new needle-nosed pliers into the hip of the man dragging him. The unbridled animal cry of a screaming man raged out as Ed wrenched around the tool buried in the man's flesh and then ripped it out, breaking away from his assailant. With the leather-wrapped handles in his fingers, Ed adjusted his grip on his weapon, once again finding footing on the cement ground.

Golden Elric eyes scanned the depths of the alley as best he could, but all he needed to know was that Winry was no longer in the scene. With his head down, Ed thundered forwards to the next person in his sights, his shoulders connecting with the muscle-bound torso of a man; the Elric crashed into the assailant and hurried him backwards. They staggered along together, grappling at one another, until Ed had controlled the tango long enough that he drove the man into the cement wall of a looming building– making sure he'd run up enough force that this terror of a man felt the impact of the wall from head to toe. Ed didn't have to look to know there would be two more men available. He spun away from the wall, drew out his left arm, and slammed the nose of the pliers into the shoulder of the next arriving combatant. The impaled object became a handle to the man's stunned body, and Ed took a firm grip of the pliers embedded in the flesh, placed his balance on the strength of the left leg Winry had made for him, and put the bottom of his right boot into the shocked man's stomach, ripping the pliers out as he shoved the assailant away.

There wasn't enough time to brace himself for the fourth man. Edward's hand clenched around the handle of his defence, and turned to witness the final assailant drop to the ground like he'd been shot in the head. Ed froze, golden eyes flying wide – there'd been no gunshots. Startled, his gaze moved off of the man clutching his skull to a wrench that fell to the ground, landing in a pile of winter slush.

Ed staggered back from the event. The sleeve of his coat swept up to wipe away the blood draining from his forehead through the curves of his face, spitting out what had gathered in the seam of his lips. Heavy, exhausted breaths rolled through his movements as Ed backed away in a haze. Winry appeared in his line of sight suddenly, materializing between one of the blinks of his eyes. He was certain she had something she wanted to say, maybe Winry was even saying it, but it was lost in the mess his failing vision made out of her missing coat, soiled clothing, scratched cheek, split lower lip, and cold hands that tried to push him away faster.

Edward suddenly planted his feet on the ground defiantly. His shoulders stiffened, his hand clenched tight around the pliers he gripped, and a deep breath was drawn in. Winry gripped the front of his coat tightly; as if she could stop Ed if he showed signs of re-engaging the melee.

With two sharp snaps of his left arm, Ed drew up the bloody pliers and hurled them backhanded into the alley wall, listening to them clatter loudly off the cement and rattle around on the ground before coming to rest, "_Didn't I tell your boss_…" a pointed finger drew around high at head level as the Elric's brow became riddled with seams, the bloodied whites of his teeth clenched, and his raging voice exploded, "_HE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!_"

Winry pushed against Ed, backing him up, "ED! Shut up and leave!"

"_Did he send you out here thinking I'd just bend over and let you kick my ass for free?_" Edward roared, his voice scorching mankind's ears with wildfire. Ed's sleeve again wiped through his face before the only arm he had wrapped around Winry's right shoulder as she pushed him back, "_NOW I'M TELLING HIM TO FUCK OFF! GOT IT?_"

The looks in a handful of angry, dark eyes flickered onto him.

"_YOU TELL HIM THAT!_"

"GET GOING," Winry screamed, her movements panicked, a trembling hand coming over Ed's mouth frantically to silence him as his grip on her shoulder tightened. She pushed and fought against his verbal rage until Ed's retreating motion accelerated to a hurried pace, and they left the confrontation behind.

* * *

Really, Alphonse thought that by this point he'd be dying of starvation or sleep deprivation. Yet, he wasn't hungry, tired, thirsty, or delirious. Al didn't know how long he'd been at the Gate. There was no sunrise or sunset. Al had no clock or watch to tell the time. There was just the never-ending light encompassing the void of the Gate. Al wasn't even sure if this was 'light' – it was some kind of illumination. Light at least carried an air of warmth to it and cast shadows, this illumination was as void of anything as the Gate was.

The young Elric was expecting to fall into some kind of delirium; he hadn't slept since he'd gotten there. Surprisingly, his mind seemed to remain intact, never falling into sleep deprived madness or feeling exhaustion weigh on him like an anvil. What Al was suffering from was frustration. He'd been awake and aware for every moment he'd been at the Gate, knowing every dull or terrifying second that passed, unable to find a way to release himself from this prison. Time was endless and unstoppable, he'd never been so aware of its progression until he'd lost the ability to track it. He had no idea how much time had passed unless he counted. He was assuming days had passed, but he certainly couldn't count for days to have confirmed that.

Alphonse likened the experience to what he'd heard life had been like as a suit of armour – no need for anything to sustain his existence.

His jacket, shirt, socks and shoes were thrown around the base of the Gate from time to time. There was very little to do, so dressing and undressing himself was something to do. Screaming at the Gate, screaming into the white void, and screaming to know he was alive was also something to do. It was like he was someone trapped in the debris of a disaster, desperate to be saved, but buried so far away he'd never be heard by anyone. After a while, Al gave up on the screaming and turned to talking to himself.

He told himself stories. He told himself lies. Alphonse created worlds, destroyed worlds, and rebuilt worlds, until he got bored of the process.

The youngest Elric got up, walk to the black pitch of the Gate, and ask it to tell him a story. He didn't even get the courtesy of being looked at by one of the frightening purple eyes Izumi once told him about. The only conclusion Al could come to that would explain why they didn't appear, was that Diana frightened them away somehow.

Alphonse wondered how that worked, so he asked the Gate. No answer. He wrote his question into the Gate's thick pitch, and still received no answer. He asked the Gate verbally and non-verbally about a million different things. Al asked what it was about a trip to the Gate that permitted people like Dante, his teacher, and his brother to clap their hands to perform alchemy. He asked why he couldn't see to the other side. Al asked where the pitch came from and what the light around the Gate was. No answer ever came; not that Al had expected one to. If someone was invading his turf, he probably wouldn't be too cooperative either.

The more time that passed, the braver Alphonse got with the Gate. He was glad it didn't seem interested in harming him – it made the adventuring easier. Touching it was one of the first things Al had done, second thing he'd done was to write and draw on the black pitch. He'd written his questions and drawn transmutation circles. Nothing happened. Bravery increased in the young Elric: he sunk a hand in. He sunk his forearm in. Alphonse Elric sunk his entire arm into the Gate, and other than dealing with the viscosity, it was no trouble to enter or exit. It gave no sensation; if he were to ever describe what it was like to be 'voided' – this was it. It was remarkably similar to how it felt to be in the white room at the Gate, except stronger. The Elric folded his arms and frowned at the Gate. With a sudden, deep breath, Al leaned forwards and stuck his face into the pitch. He opened his eyes. Nothing. No, it was really _nothing_. Interesting! He wasn't looking at blackness, he was looking at nothingness.

Al took his face out.

The bored little Elric wandered over to the hinge of the heavy stone doors. With a thoughtful gleam in his eye, Al stuck his arm beyond the Gate, and reached around the frame, feeling through the substance to see if there was anything to touch. There was – he could literally reach around and touch opposing frame of the door. Why was it surprising to find that an open door had two sides? He felt it out as best he could, afraid to reach too far and lose his side. As best he could tell, with a few sprints around the open doors to see if he could compare, the reverse side of the Gate was a mirrored image of his side. 'Interesting' transformed into fascinating. He scampered to the opposite hinge and tested the concept again. Same result.

Fascinating!

Centering himself at the middle of the Gate, Alphonse dropped to his knees. Down on all fours, he carefully slid a hand out along the surface he knelt on, sliding his hand beyond the Gate. The smooth surface continued; there wasn't even a perforation to mark the change – just a density change. Al bounced to his feet, scampered to the frame of the Gate yet again, put his hands against the open Gate doors for balance, and stuck his foot in. His toe tapped the surface. The Elric's bravery shifted weight to the exploratory foot, and he stepped down – making absolutely certain he had the majority of his weight and balance remained on the brighter side of the Gate.

Nevertheless, he stood for a moment at the Gate doors, with one foot standing on the surface of the place on the other side.

It was fascinating and exciting and tantalizing and astoundingly dangerous. Al took his foot out.

Sitting down, Al tried to figure out what his new information told him.

On the opposite side of the Gate was a dark 'heavy' space, with a mirrored facing Gate. He'd felt the Gate frame and not a secondary set of doors, which meant there was one set of doors that opened in his direction. From his point of view, if Al wanted to see the Gate, he had to be in this white space first. Maybe there was a space like that as well for the other side of the Gate? A black one? …That made sense! The worlds could be viewed as opposites, so this side was full of light and that side was full of darkness.

Something more suddenly made sense; complete and utter sense! The youngest Elric roared with ironic laughter as he flopped over on his side, "Diana's not linking to the other world itself, she's linking to the other world's 'Gate space'… or whatever this place is. That's why I can't see the world beyond the Gate!"

A young infant was needed, because an infant had no bonds between its mind, body, and soul. That infant needed to be a hermaphrodite – a child combined of both worlds.

"How would Dante get a baby from 'beyond' the Gate? She didn't, did she? That's why the Gate is black and so well behaved," Alphonse told the white space an answer it wouldn't share itself, "Dante must have fused Diana with one of the creatures within the Gate – that's why we're not seeing the world, only the Gate space… because that's where the Gate creatures exist, in the black Gate space."

How fantastic, two points up on Dante, and she didn't even know it. Now, what was he supposed to do with that knowledge?

Technically the opposite Gate was part of the other world, but it was physically detached. Could Al walk into the other room and return just fine as long as Diana was there? He wasn't about to try – Al was the only one who knew alchemy wasn't possible beyond the Gate, so he couldn't risk getting himself stuck. How was he supposed to bridge the gap between the place at the other world's side of the Gate, and the world itself? Where had the blood come from that flowed from the Gate? He hadn't seen anyone bleeding in the pitch, but then again, he wasn't sure if his eyes could see anything in that room – he'd only touched things. Did somebody die in that room? What was the energy? Where did that come from?

There were still more questions than answers, and Alphonse threw his arms over his face as he rolled onto his back, "This is stupid, I still don't know what I'm supposed to do." Again, frustrations mounted and the youngest Elric scowled. He didn't understand how the other world functioned or how to put together the scattered puzzle pieces of information he had, "All I set out to do was find my brother and bring him home where he belongs. Why is that so hard to do?"

Another question the Gate had no intention of answering.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

* Red water treatment in pregnancy (to crystallize the stone) was something Nash Tlingum was experimenting with. The experiments had been a success in Central, but Nash was unwilling to continue the experiments in Xenotime.

* Atrophy – The wasting away of the human body. A word derived from Atropos.  
* Atropos – One of the three Fates (Birth, Life, & Death). Atropos is the cutter of the life line and delivers death.  
* Aisa – Alternate name for Atropos. At one time, very early on when I chose Aisa (Aisa sounded better than Atropos for a woman's name) I'd thought ofintroducing all 3 fates as Dante's new tool. I opted out on that… I've made enough of a mess with the current characters.

* I have never given much for a description of Aisa. I give very little detail on what she's like visually – she's something the reader is free to imagine up. I'd suspect everyone has a different idea on what she looks and sounds like. I've always seen her as the kind of character whose face is never clearly seen on screen and whose voice is unremarkable. For the times where she is visible, she's very bland.

* Holy crap :D I have this chapter out well before I expected. Um... next chapter is pretty far behind... been causing chaos with art... so January sometime~!


	36. Social Augmentation

_(Hooray! I got my portfolio done… so now I can post my next chapter! Sorry for the delay :)_

* * *

**Part XXXVI – Chapter 87 – Social Augmentation**

"GET THE HELL OFF OF ME, BOTH OF YOU!"

Hermann's brow creased, teeth clenched, and he threw a number of options out the window before deciding to drain his syringe into Ed's shoulder, stubbornly defiant against the protest of an extremely loud and volatile Elric.

"Give that a few minutes and things will feel a good deal better," Hermann put his tool aside amidst the lethal glare he received after Tilly removed the pillow from the side of Ed's face. "You have got to be the luckiest son of a bitch I've ever met… still able to put up a fight with me after all that."

Ed calmed in the dark house. Only a meek fire ran to heat the home; it was the easiest thing on the calamity of a headache Ed had. Tilly tucked the pillow beneath Ed's head and replaced the soft bag of snow wrapped in a hand towel that was being used to quell the swelling on Edward's left cheek – it seemed everyone who'd hit him was right handed. The woman took a glance over to Winry, eyeing her curled up quietly in the rocking chair next to the fireplace, before settling herself back down.

"Edward, I am a scientist. I met you and we were scientists researching advanced theories in flight, rocketry, and engineering. Yet somehow I've turned into your personal doctor." Hermann shook his head at the concept, "how did this happen?"

"That's what you get for learning to be a doctor before turning into a scientist," Ed flinched when Tilly swept an alcohol soaked ball of cotton over his knuckles.

Hermann's hand clamped down on Ed's good eye, pulling it wide for investigation, and instructed the Elric to focus on the motions of his pen, "The last person I ever thought I'd get a call from during dinner hour yesterday was Winry," Hermann glanced over to her in the chair for a moment, "and I'm really impressed that she called, even if she only had four words to go on."

"Yeah…" the reply came out slow, and Ed's eye lost focus on the directorial pen – everything diverted to his thoughts of the prior night. Herman snapped his fingers to reclaim Ed's attention to finish with the assessment.

"You're better now than you were last night though," the pen was slipped into the chest pocket of Hermann's shirt, "I only had to snap my fingers once."

"There you go," Tilly announced, showing Ed his re-bandaged hand that accompanied his wrapped forehead and torso, "fresh bandages all around. Little less red and a bit more white." The woman's eyes widened playfully, giving him a carefully eyeballed head-to-waistband examination, "I don't think I've ever seen you without your shirt on, Edward. It's quite interesting to see a man without an arm," Tilly put her spool of wrapping bandage down on a side table, "it's a shame really, because if you had both those arms and we could wash those bruises off, you'd be something quite exceptional to look at."

Ed reddened at the comment, looking at the woman warily.

"Mathilde!" her husband stared back at her, a little unimpressed.

Tilly rolled her eyes at the two of them, "I am just saying he would be the first thing any and every girl between fifteen and thirty on a French beach would look at. He's blonde, he's a bit tanned, and he's nicely built," the wife huffed at Hermann's blank stare and gave a very sweet smile to Ed, "it would make him fun and games for all the ladies to try and find out if he's just as nicely built from the waist down."

A little dark red vein popped into existence among the bruising on Ed's red and purple face, "I think something's seriously wrong with your wife, Hermann."

Tilly laughed.

The pseudo-doctor laughed as well, rising to his feet and moving out of the room, "She's a troublesome little chick, just 'chirp chirp chirp' all day long." Hermann snapped his fingers, far less distraught over the conversation than Ed was. The older man tidied the mess he'd made of the coffee table with the sorry little first aid kit kept in the house and took himself to the front door, snagging his boots, "I'm going to head home for a bit and grab a couple of things. I wasn't expecting to be here all night, so I'll be back here in about forty-five minutes to an hour," Hermann threw his coat over his shoulders, "I'll put some stitches into your forehead; I should have some thread left from the last time I put your face back together."

"Har har," Ed rolled his eyes… as best he could with the left eye mostly swollen shut. Yet, there was that sudden threat of a needle again and Ed cringed. If he was lucky, he'd be unconscious for that procedure.

"I'll see if I can find anything in this house to make us a late breakfast with," Tilly nodded, standing and taking her leave as well, "can't save people's lives and then let them starve."

Tilly excused herself from the living room and shortly thereafter Hermann vacated the house. Edward listened to the building fall into relative silence once the front door rattled shut. Ed swallowed the groan his body tried to voice as he moved to a more upright position. His head was still pounding, though it was _thankfully _far more manageable.

"I don't think you're supposed to be getting up…"

Ed blinked over to Winry, "I thought you'd fallen asleep."

Winry snorted, "It's hard to sleep when you're trying to kill people with your voice."

"Sorry…" a sheepish look took over Ed's face; he just didn't like needles!

Winry leaned forwards in the rocker and slipped to her feet, making her way to the couch, "Are you feeling better?"

Not counting his swollen face and a body parts wrapped in bandages, Ed responded, "I'm alright." He shuffled a bit, giving room for Winry at the end of the sofa, "I'm sore as hell though. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Winry nodded, "I'm alright."

"Where did you find Hermann's phone number?" Ed finally had the opportunity to ask.

Winry tucked her knees under herself and sat down, nesting into the cushion, "In the card-files on the desk in your dad's old office," Winry tipped her head into the seat backing and gave a light, embarrassed laugh to herself, "I felt pretty stupid for a bit. I called and didn't realize until Hermann answered that I didn't know how to say what I wanted," her eyes fell away, "you weren't doing good by the time we got home… "

A log in the weakly lit fire place broke from the slow morning burn, shaking out its cinders while it crumbled; Winry's desire to explain herself further crumbled along with it.

Ed figured this was one of those moments where he was supposed to find something reassuring to say, and when he took the deep breath needed for it, an unexpected weight ploughed over Edward's body like an avalanche. As quickly as he felt it hit, it lifted, leaving behind a battered and bruised man that felt like he was floating in water. The knots through his neck, shoulders, and back felt like they'd loosened and Ed allowed the tension to drain. He had no doubt it was the result of whatever Hermann had shot him up with. Ed gave a shake of his head to try and tone the feeling down and he turned to watch Winry where she sat.

"I should have told you," Ed blinked, feeling like every muscle movement he made to speak was exaggerated.

"Told me what?" Winry looked up.

"About Envy," Ed answered, unable to do anything to hide the fight he was putting up against whatever was trying to carry him away, "and Adolf and the meeting during the week."

Winry smiled lightly, "We can talk about it later, I think you need to lay down."

Winry's voice began to compete with the fireplace as the loudest thing in Ed's ears, "We should talk about it now. It's important."

Edward had developed a 'bad' habit in London of falling asleep to the sound of the fireplace; Ed found the destructive element's confined behaviour somewhat relaxing. Fire reminded him a great deal of Mustang, and he had to give the man due credit for harnessing something so wild without walls to confine it. It was strange for Ed to realize how much of a safety net it had been to have Mustang around until he was honestly stranded on his own.

The fire also brought out a couple of nice memories to entertain from childhood with his mom and brother; how they'd snuggle up in the rocker and she'd read to them in front of the fire on cold nights. Or when they'd come into the Rockbell home from outside on a rainy day and dry out in front of Pinako's fireplace. That was worlds ago, and a long time ago; a part of what felt like somebody else's normal life. But Ed still remembered that shadow of a memory clearly enough that he could stand in the middle of a yellow house and look down at three kids he once knew. Little Winry opened her mouth to speak.

"Yeah, well, you're important too sometimes… like right now."

Ed startled. He returned to reality in a fog, on his back upon the couch with Winry's hand sweeping away the hair on his face and setting down the cold bag of snow onto his battered left cheek.

"S'okay Win," Ed mumbled – he had not expected his tongue to be that hard to move.

He heard something that sounded like Winry's laugh, "Hey, come on. You need to be taken care of too once in a while," Ed wondered how annoying it must be for his hair to keep messing up his forehead; Winry kept sweeping it away, "Equivalent exchange, or something."

"Pffff…" the dismissive noise was the last coherent thing Ed managed.

* * *

"Okay, seriously," Jean Havoc threw down his cards in a huff, "bleed me dry already. Who the hell invited _you _to the poker floor?"

"He did," Riza pointed to Roy as she collected her winnings.

"Sir, I respectfully request that we establish a 'no women allowed' set of poker rules," Havoc complained in a hushed voice as he gnawed on his cigarette in the empty, darkened room. The air smelt a little like ash, but mostly of the dank moisture that had been trapped within the building walls undisturbed for days.

"Request denied," Roy answered casually, "I do not promote sexism."

"You promote a lot of other things that have the word sex in them though," Havoc was the only one of the men in the room – Breda, Furey, & Falman – who could get away with that remark, "why exclude this one?"

With the shake of his head, Breda gave an elbow to his financially woeful partner, "You realize that you're complaining about a woman who's sitting right in front of you, with a better shot than you, _and_ all your money."

"Hey," Havoc threw in an excessively dramatic show of hurt, "I'm a damned good rifleman, thank you very much."

Falman gave a snort to the exchange, "I think we should deal before you become target practice, Lieutenant."

Havoc raised his arms to call his surrender, "I'm not only second rate, but I'm also broke. Don't bother dealing me in."

Breda gave a 'tisk' to Havoc's departure from the game, "Never gonna impress the ladies with poker skills like this, man."

"Pft," the blonde officer spat his cigarette out into his fingers, "I could be letting the high-ranking lady win. What kind of a man takes advantage of a female rookie at the table? What kind of man embarrasses his senior officer in front of peers? I have morals."

As Fuery handed out the next deal of poker cards, Riza leaned over and gave a whisper of her concerns to Roy, "You… didn't tell them I knew how to play?"

"Why would I?" Roy grinned, giving her question a shrug, "It's more fun to watch them suffer this humiliation."

"You're cruel, sir," Riza rolled her eyes, "did you tell them that it was my night for the beer run?"

"They don't even know you're in on the beer run," Roy mused at the idea.

One of Riza's eyebrows perked, "That's because I'm _not;_ you asked me if I'd pitch in tonight."

Roy gave a wise pat to his major's shoulder, "And I knew it wouldn't cost you a single cent, because you'd bleed them dry."

Riza's expression went flat, "It was your night to buy, wasn't it?"

"Gentlemen," Roy raised his voice enough to gather only the attention of those in earshot, what lay beyond the darkened confines of this candlelit room needn't know they were there, "last hand before we head out to pick up evening refreshments."

"I can't believe you put us all on the 9-5AM rotation. That's not even a graveyard shift, it's just cruel," Breda grumbled, "that better be some damned good beer."

"You'll be taken care of," Roy smirked at the complaint as he swept up the cards handed to him, "we need to take our hold on the southern ward tonight, and if we do it while the sun is down and people are asleep, we'll avoid as many civilians as possible." There was an ire to Mustang's word's that everyone shared – it wasn't that it wouldn't have been hard to move into the southern ward in the daylight hours, it was that the Central authorities were using the general population as shields to hold them back. It was a disgusting strategy, so they'd move in at midnight instead and establish their presence. The men and women who called this ward home could wake up in the morning and know that the debacle of the clashes between the 'rebels' or 'militants', or whatever the hell the Central authorities were trying to label them, had passed.

Brigadier General Mustang had made it very clear that he had every intention of leaving the general population out of his skirmishes. They were what he was trying to protect, even if Central Headquarters disabled the power grid to the ward, Mustang would still be fortifying his presence. He needed to ensure his strategic footholds were in place first and foremost, before advancing on the heart of Central – like cutting off the limbs of a beast one at a time before finally taking it down.

Roy's good right eye looked up to the game as Riza's coins were placed down for her bet and his comrades followed suit. Havoc moved away from the group, silently latching his rifle into his fingers and sliding up to the open hole in the wall of the structure. Mustang watched his sniper – his preverbal left hand – dressed in his stealth blacks, slip into the darkness with mastered precision and skill; he'd sit, kneel, or crouch there for the duration of his shift if Mustang asked it of him, and he'd do that without complaint. There was a lot of trust to be placed into the man at his left side, covering his blind spot.

"Your bet, sir," Fuery told his commanding officer.

Mustang looked at his cards, shuffled them a little, and placed one down to be exchanged by Fuery, then offering a few coins to the pot. Even at the poker table, Fuery was his coordinator. If X needed to be connected to Z or Y needed to communicate with V, he got it done. If Fuery was ordered to remain up here with a rifle on his back, manning the team's communications through this empty building, he'd keep the operation running and get his jobs done. It was a shame the young officer hadn't a hope or prayer that kind of work ethic would carry him through the ranks – if a man didn't flaunt what he had and partook in the pissing contests needed to get ahead, he'd end up as a diamond in the rough that Mustang would find.

The second pass of the group saw Falman take three new cards, make some kind of displeased sigh at himself for it, and know it was time to bow out. Mustang didn't quite have that skill; he stubbornly ploughed ahead – even with a bad hand sometimes. The Brigadier General kept people like Hawkeye and Falman around because their heads were cool enough to think things through and know when to step back, retreat, regroup, realign, or simply surrender to the situation. It took someone special, with a strong sense of self, to be man enough to accept defeat. Falman was the oldest and one of the calmest officers he kept – never riling up, accepting his tasks, and doing them diligently. Officers like that were as good to have around as dogs, except dogs worked for free… theoretically.

Roy had asked once if Riza would consider having Black Hayate 'trained' for military service work. 'Trained' was a poor choice of words on Mustang's part, since the Major would probably have her dog doing bench presses in a weight room if she desired it. The answer at the end of the conversation was 'yes', but only if the dog was paid the most egregious salary Mustang had ever seen for a service animal. Sadly, Falman – and most of his crew for that matter – was cheaper labour than Hawkeye's mutt. No one needed to know that though.

Left in the three-ring circus were Breda, Hawkeye, and Mustang, and Fuery called for another round of bets. Breda was always a riot to play poker with. Roy was never certain if the officer realized he was so expressive while playing the game, but comparing his playing style to Hawkeye's was like night and day, because Riza sat stone cold like a rock. Breda hummed and hawed, or scowled and frowned, like the decisions he was making with his cards was either slow and painful or a careful science, Mustang could never figure out which. His free personality shone through in his work; it was his best asset. Breda worked hard, kept the office light, entertained with his snark, and could easily be one of the most solid foundation workers Mustang had.

Roy Mustang had a little bit of everything to make up his core group of people. This time they were all going to be together for a seige on Central and they were all going to do this right.

A spark suddenly lit in Breda's grin and his cards were displayed on the floor for all eyes to see, "Take that: full house, eights high."

Havoc's impressed whistle drifted into everyone's ear.

Nothing even flinched in Riza's disposition as she lay down her hand, "Full house, queens high."

"God damn mother fucking…" Breda ripped out a blue tantrum as everyone snickered or stifled their laughs as Riza collected her winnings, "…son of a bitch. I almost had you!"

"That's why she had queens high, pal. The major is actually poker royalty," Havoc snickered.

Riza shook her head, glancing to Roy, who thought the whole escapade was highly amusing. The Brigadier General was the only one who knew she'd won the Central College Rank Poker Championships on the way through the academy in her junior and senior years. Riza still had the plaques stored in a box to prove it.

Mustang drew to his feet, placing his five cards down on the floor face down, dusting his black pants off, and glancing down to the major who never needed a hand to stand up. She stood as his right arm marksman, as she had for so many years. Every quality that Mustang viewed in himself that he didn't have he could see in her; she'd even started to remind him of qualities within himself that he thought he'd lost with Maes. There was no better person to keep at his side than someone as loyal as her hound. She had everything in her repertoire Mustang knew he needed to be complete.

"The major and I will be back by quarter after ten," Roy announced, "I know it's not much time, but drinking stops at eleven, responsible drinking at eleven thirty; I need everyone's focus between midnight and one. The south is going to lose its reliance on Central's command – your shift'll be over when we're set up in the ward."

"Yes, sir," was the chorus in response.

"_Alrighty_," Lieutenant Havoc called out a little louder than normal, catching Mustang's attention as he adjusted the scope atop his rifle, "Wouldya look at that, I _can _see the liquor store from up here," he took a look through the scope, "and I can see the store front and clerk. I hope I don't have to shoot any patrons for stealing other people's hard earned money." The lieutenant offered a quick glance to his boss.

The unfortunate thing for Mustang was, when you pick up people who fill into the slots of your most crucial assets, they end up figuring out too much about you. Riza left the room ahead of her superior officer, presumably grinning if the satisfied looks on everyone's faces was any indication.

* * *

"Close your eyes!" Winry ordered.

Ed closed his eyes.

"Keep'em closed!" Winry shuffled through the kitchen, rattling a few indiscriminate things, before a glass plate tapped down on the table, "okay open them!"

Ed opened his eyes and laughed.

Eleven iced vanilla cupcakes had been arranged on a plate, each one with two lit candles stuck awkwardly in them. He'd known it was coming; Winry could be the nosiest, most vulgar cook he'd ever met. A crash of pans drew Ed out of bed before eleven that morning. He started to come downstairs, but Winry flew into a rage and ordered him back to bed. Ed was too tired to argue, so he lounged around in bed until noon, when she 'invited' him down again.

"Happy birthday," Winry announced with a smile, hands on her hips.

Ed smirked at the simple celebratory display, "Did you eat the twelfth cupcake?"

Winry rolled her eyes, removing the tie from her hair, "It was a poor, deformed, suffering creature, so I put it out of its misery. Besides, eleven works better since you're twenty two. I had it all planned."

Again Ed laughed, then took a deep breath and blew out the candles.

Winry slid into a chair and snatched up one of the freshly prepared cupcakes in sync with Ed and they gave a collective chomp into their fresh, fluffy pastry.

"Are you feeling any better today?" Winry garbled as she chewed, fiddling with the cupcake in her fingers.

Ed shrugged and swallowed, "I'm still tired," which was a gross understatement. It had taken all his effort just to get out of bed, "I was spent by seven thirty last night. I need to get over this." Ed rubbed his forehead, still littered with marks.

Winry chewed on her second bite, cradling the cupcake in the palms of her hands, "I went to the market this morning while you were asleep and got some things, so don't worry about going out."

"On your own?" his eyes widened.

"I'm a big girl, Ed," Winry nibbled on her treat, "I've watched you enough to know how to grocery shop," she gave a self assuring nod to her own actions, "I picked up butter, eggs, bread, peanut butter, a jam that looked interesting, um… some greens, potatoes, and a thing of ham. I'll figure out how to cook ham."

Ed blinked wordlessly.

Winry chomped down on the last bite of her cupcake, "I did laundry last night after you passed out and strung it up in the living room, then made the fireplace cook to dry it out. It was really cozy in here all night; the house should always be that warm," Winry grinned happily at the idea of warmth, "it should be dry now."

"Um…" Ed sat feeling a little humbled by all of the maintenance she'd done, "Thanks Winry."

She shrugged, standing up from her chair, "I'm going to clean up my disaster in here. Just keep eating cupcakes so I don't gain ten pounds from them."

Ed turned the cupcake around in his hand, saying nothing. The clatter of his father's kitchen materials began to sound throughout the house and again the half eaten treat was turned in Ed's hand.

He had been the most useless person since Saturday, and Winry had done nothing but step up. Ed had never been fond of being cared for, and even if it was reassuring that Winry was able to look after everything, Ed preferred to be doling out the care. He sure as hell did not like feeling so fatigued that he could barely manage his own day, and considering the fight he'd been in, he actually felt physically better than his body was letting him function. Ed had never had to trudge along with such an unquenchable exhaustion before.

Putting the remains of his miniature cake on the table, Ed stood up, "I need to talk to you about what came out of that Nazi meeting." He'd been putting this off. Ed couldn't even pawn this conversation off on lethargy any longer; he'd really left Winry in the dark on this one. The longer he procrastinated, the worse this would get. It was his birthday, she'd made cupcakes… Ed probably wasn't going to get a better mood between the two of them going for this.

Winry tossed a washed down whisk into the draining board at the sink, "You mentioned that the other day."

But really, how was he supposed to put this? There was no way to coat it. 'Hi Winry, I didn't tell you something _really_ important that you should have known last week' couldn't possibly go over well. Ed felt the sinking feeling in his stomach drop a bit further; he could probably script her reaction. Winry was not going to be impressed with him. Maybe he should just get on with it, "Adolf told me that he'd gotten rid of Envy."

"What?"

Winry's actions suddenly stuttered to a halt and Ed flinched when she spun around on him. Yup, this wasn't going to go over well, "I don't have any reason to doubt him. He trumpets himself too much to gloat about it if it was actually a lie."

"A-are you sure?" the sudden information had clearly side-swiped her.

"Yeah…" Ed felt himself shrink a little.

Winry stared back at him with an astounded reaction that morphed into concern. Her brow quickly knit while the gape in her mouth grew wider and Winry let her hands fall to the wayside, "Wha… Who attacked us then?"

Edward's jaw became firm, "Those were Adolf's men."

"But why?" that answer clearly made no sense to her, "We haven't done anything to him. We don't even know _him_! Doesn't he realize what Envy is?"

Ed swallowed hard; it was still hard for him to comprehend how this world thought and how the people came to judge others. He didn't think it would ever make complete sense to him. "Envy told Adolf about us and where we're from, and that's made us targets. We don't have to have done anything, we just have to be something he doesn't approve of." Ed's gaze shifted, "He's blaming me for Envy's invasion of his mind. He called it my plague."

A thunderous silence raged around the room after Ed had spoken, and then Winry's jaw fell open, "You've known about this since last _Tuesday_. Why wasn't this important enough to share on Tuesday?"

Taking a deep breath, the bridge of Ed's nose creased in frustration, "I'd gone there thinking that when I came back, I'd be able to tell you I knew what we'd do next, and I ended up knowing less about what was going on than I'd started out with," Ed sighed with the shake of his head, "I didn't know what I was supposed to tell you." It was an answer as astoundingly close to the truth as Ed was going to be able to give her. He was a quite pleased with himself for the effort – and that was going to be all the self-gratifying pleasure he'd get out of the conversation.

Winry's hands washed over her face as she huffed in disbelief of the last few minutes. Her foot suddenly thundered down onto the floor and she took the three powerful strides required to centre herself in front of Ed.

"You have to tell me _something_. I don't care if you don't know what you're going to do about it," Winry's angered voice ordered, "I asked you before you went to tell me what happened after it was over, and you didn't."

Ed opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself – all he had was excuses… really pathetic excuses. Ed hadn't ever considered that _not _telling Winry was a good idea; he'd just avoided doing it. He didn't want to admit to her how much of a loss he was at. It was foolish, and he knew it, and he let it happen anyways. It wouldn't have changed what happened on the weekend, but it certainly changed Winry's perception of the events.

Winry grunted and shuffled her feet, stepping away with a huff. She moved past Ed, but didn't make it far; Edward's left hand swung out and caught Winry by her wrist.

"I'm really sorry, Winry."

With a grumble, Winry's frown snapped crossly at Ed, "I'm sure you're really sorry. But what if your injuries were worse, what if you were in the hospital, what if I found myself in a situation where I didn't have you around – how am I supposed to know who I can trust and what I should watch out for? I would not be disappointed in you if you told me you didn't know what to do, Ed. I'm disappointed when you don't tell me these things!" there was an immense amount of desperate frustration leaking through Winry's voice, "You keep sheltering me; how do I convince you to stop?"

There was a point being missed somewhere that Ed was trying to convey and he couldn't quite find the handle for it. A tongue lashing from Winry was well warranted, but his rationale was not coming out right. It wasn't that he was concerned Winry would be disappointed in him; he didn't know why he was so sure she wouldn't be disappointed, but that hadn't been his motivation. He wasn't entirely certain it had a lot to do with sheltering her either. If Ed ran a scenario in his mind of what a conversation with Winry Tuesday night may have been like, and looked at how he'd buried himself in alchemy the next day, and then added in the fears realized on Saturday…

The frown Ed had fought off quickly zipped through his brow and he found a sequence of words as close to his logic train as he could coherently verbalize, "_I'm_ disappointed if I don't know what to do to keep you safe. You don't deserve this. You shouldn't have to live in a life where you're afraid of the world or what it might do to you."

The cross look Winry wore lingered for a few moments after Ed's words vanished, and without warning it all drained away. Winry let her stance soften, expression ease, and presence warm. Ed rolled his jaw; he didn't know what to make of the transformation.

A pair of clear blue eyes looked up at him, "You don't deserve this either."

Ed's brow rose at the remark, feeling the tension in his jaw vanish.

"I wish I could rescue you from this world some days and take you home," Winry drew in a breath before Ed could even think of countering her response, "I don't need to go home as much as you do. Getting that new right arm on you doesn't fix a whole lot; I'm just putting a bandage over all the damage," her eyes shuffled to the corners of the kitchen as her thoughts continued to be voiced, "at least you feel like you can find some way to get us home with all that this world, Dante, Envy, and your father have given us. I wouldn't be able to do that, I don't understand it… I wouldn't even know where to look."

Ed opened his mouth to reply, and found that he had nothing to say. He ended up doing nothing more than standing in front of Winry with his jaw slowly closing and an empty head of thoughts– they'd all abandoned him without warning.

"But, you _don't _deserve this. I know that much."

Winry moved as though she had something more to say, but she was interrupted by a boisterous knock to the front door of the house. They both froze, startled by the noise. Ed glanced in the direction of the front door, not able to see it from where they stood in the kitchen. A second knock rattled off the wood and Winry slipped away to answer it, stranding Edward with his mental chaos of non-thoughts. He could hear Winry undoing the latches on the door, and his eyes fell to the palm of his left hand. He flexed his fingers, opening and closing everything. Ed's tired golden eyes looked up to the table where cupcakes and candles for his birthday sat arranged on a plate. His ears heard Winry open the door and Ed suddenly remembered that he needed to breathe.

* * *

Izumi decided that what she was most grateful for about being in the middle of the protests and demonstrations taking over the streets around the security walls of Central headquarters was that the sheer number of people would block the light from any handclap she needed to make. The alchemy teacher that figured this unrest worked to Mustang's advantage.

It wasn't the threat of a mysterious evil-doer or a sinister plot to bring down Central that was inciting the people, it was the appearance of a communiqué that was presented to the public and _no one_ in Central seemed to know who was responsible for bringing it to the surface. The government officials had flown into a tizzy, because the communiqué surfaced in the hands of the Central Times prior to publication early that morning. Within hours of the newspaper's morning run the chief editor was taken into custody, but the man refused to divulge his source.

What was known about the communiqué was that it had originated from Drachma and was regarding Major Armstrong's inexcusable show of military alchemy at their last 'engagement'. The entire document was published showing how Drachma accused Central of staging the skirmish to disguise negotiations going on over northern borderlands – a hand-over from Amestris to Drachma. The people of Amestris had fought long and hard to keep this border property and they were _not _impressed that it would just be negotiated away without any public input or even without public knowledge. The new 'government' couldn't just give portions of their nation away! The communiqué was destined for the upper most echelons of the government as a tongue-lashing laden with threats of redemption. That only added to a compounding number of frustrations with the people that had shown up since the Central Market explosion Izumi had also witnessed some time ago.

Major Armstrong, in the meantime, was being lauded by many in the city for bringing the vast majority of his battalion home alive with his show of defiance against his orders. If they'd done nothing but hold Drachma off for an undetermined amount of time in order to hide the country's affairs from the public's eye, who knows how many lives would have uselessly been lost.

By noon the city was up in arms and the major's actions had drummed up an astounding amount of support for Mustang's cause. His cause was bolstered when the Armstrong household itself issued an endorsement for the Brigadier General earlier that afternoon.

It was well known that a group of 'militants', as the government had instructed the newspapers to call them, was spearheading the 'unwarranted' upheaval of Central and up until that morning they had only select company for support. The south and southeast wards of the city had their reliance on Central's system of command reduced because of Mustang's footholds. The officer's expansion beyond these two wards of the city was running into heavier resistance against the Central authorities, and when the city turned on its head around noontime, not only did the government disengage from Mustang, but the brigadier general also changed his focus from a northern push through the growing masses of people, to a take-over of the south western ward instead. It was expected that Mustang and his growing number of supporters would commandeer the southern third of Central City by dawn the next day.

Izumi took the long walk around the walls of Central Headquarters. She wanted to get inside and do it in a way that left the masses of people outside, because who knew what would become of Central City if the population stormed in. The woman needed to find a point of the wall closest to a building structure so she could slip in and out with as little detection as possible. Izumi had already made a mess of the Mitchell home that morning and Dante hadn't been there. It was doubtful she would be in the Empty City with all that was going on, so the stout little problem known as Dante had to be in Central somewhere_._

The teacher made her way around a bend in the compound and again she was confronted with a curious thing: the influx of security – both police and military for Central headquarters. It was more of a police presence than the military that was being used elsewhere. She'd seen this when she'd walked along the east side – a bulldozer and backhoe had been stopped from working around the Central headquarters wall. The security presence was being used to keep protestors from damaging the equipment. That was strange.

The teacher's nose wrinkled and she continued on, eyeing the south west corner of the western wing. The masses also seemed aware that this was an alluring point in the compound – many men, mostly young men, had gathered at this point and had begun an attempt to scale the wall. Izumi didn't know what they possibly thought they'd accomplish by doing this. The teacher moved with undisturbed prowess through the upset society, eyeing the ground for the layout of the subsurface terrain. There were the gutters in the streets showing the sewer system moving parallel to the road. There were the manhole covers showing cross sections of underground piping running perpendicular to that. The cross sections of piping on the next block should lead to the underbelly of the Western building.

A gunshot rang out into the air and the crowd screamed before falling to a murmur. Izumi looked back to see a soldier standing upon the wall, his rifle raised in the air, ordering the people to back down. It took a moment for the masses to gel in rebellion to the order and the frustrated soldier fired a second, then a third shot into the air, yelling at the people to back down.

Izumi shouldered her way through the droves of moving people – sanity saying move away, group mentality drawing people towards the fires. Izumi shoved through a number of people before she stood at the wall a ways down from the noise. All attention for the area began to centre on this soldier and the rocks being thrown at him and his partners. Izumi's hands sharply clapped together and she put one of her more intriguing alchemical reactions into this south western leg of stone wall. Every pocket of air within the stones and the pastes that held the wall together was extracted from the materials, causing the barrier to give a hefty 'cough' – blowing protestors back and sending the few soldiers standing on the wall into the air. Izumi heard them squawk as they tumbled down onto the grass within the Central compound.

Izumi had transmuted her way through the wall amidst the confusion and slipped to the fire door with enough time to roll her eyes at the armed soldiers picking themselves up off the ground. The teacher gave an eye to her handiwork with the wall; she wondered if any of them would notice that the wall was a little shorter and thinner now.

Izumi slipped into the building; she didn't want to sewer crawl anyways.

The stairwell at the fire doors went at least one floor down and assumedly all the way up to the sixth floor. The teacher heard no sounds of life in stair column and she made her way upwards to the echo of her sandal claps. The sixth floor was a good place to start. Important people place their offices at the top of buildings. It was only a matter of making her way from this wing to wherever in the central portion of the compound the Prime Minister's office was. Izumi slipped out into an empty hall with a long string of south-facing windows. The curtains had been pulled on all of them and Izumi snuck a finger behind the fabric and peered out into the problems plaguing Central City. All these windows were close enough for some crazy child and his well-aimed, oversized slingshot to reach from any one of the nearby trees. Izumi made her way swiftly from the window and marched down the hall and she managed to walk for quite some time without encountering anyone.

"Madam!"

Izumi's feet slid to a stop. Strangely, she found herself more annoyed with how old 'madam' made her feel than how she was finally being intruded upon. Izumi turned back to eye some young, sharply dressed, building security officer.

"Yes, young man?" she answered courtly. If he was going to make her feel old, Izumi would address him like he was too young for the getup.

"I'm sorry, Madam, but the building's been locked down; why are you in here?" the officer said as he approached.

Izumi sighed, not sure of what role she was trying to play, "I just came to have a peek. It's really hard to see this city fall apart so badly. I was just on my way out; sorry I intruded dear."

"Please don't re-enter this wing until the protests simmer down," the young man gave a wave of his hand to encourage Izumi along.

"Don't worry about that, I have some paperwork that I need to get back to anyways," Izumi shrugged, and took up a firm pace.

The officer nodded a bit, "What department are you from?"

"Social Services," Izumi kept her walking pace.

"Where are you work tags, Madam?"

Izumi gave the boy a disgusted 'tisk'. Before he had a chance to do anything, Izumi had clapped her hands and opened up a hole in an interior office wall. With a quick spin on her toes, the unassuming housewife booted the gawking security officer into the room.

"Where's Prime Minister Mitchell?" Izumi barked.

The flailing guard reached for his sidearm, but the blue alchemical spark from Izumi's hand clamped down on the barrel, sealing the tip of the weapon. The terrified young man looked up at a looming, angry presence standing over him.

"Where do I find Prime Minister Mitchell, young man?" Izumi repeated firmly.

"I don't know!" the boy's words quivered slightly as they came out, "and if I did, I wouldn't tell any of you protestors where the Right Honourable Mitchell is!"

Izumi rolled her eyes, "Kiddo, I am not a protestor. I just want to collect a few puzzle pieces and find out what's happened to one of my boys. That's all. I don't give a damn about what's going on in this city."

The young officer stared back blankly at the woman, not sure what he was supposed to say in response.

"So you stay here and keep quiet for a while, okay? Be a good little boy and do as you're told," Izumi marched out of the hole in the wall she'd made and promptly sealed it again, easily stripping the room's actual door of its handle in the process. Without any concern for the engagement, Izumi continued down the hall. The young officer was probably safer locked up in that room anyways.

* * *

All things considered, Ed's birthday had _started_ out okay, yet somehow the day ended up with Winry at a piano with Albrecht Haushofer and his younger brother Heinz, and Ed upstairs in the spare room being poked and prodded by the doctor Rudolf Hess had shown up at the Haushofer house with. Ed had just assumed that when the Haushofers found out about his injuries, they would have postponed the idea of a birthday dinner – no such luck. Though it wasn't so much a dinner at this point, it was more like a kidnapping.

Professor Haushofer stood guard on the room, making sure Ed obeyed the instructions of the doctor, and signalling for his wife when Ed was less than cooperative about a physical examination. Ed had no problem arguing with the men in the room, but Mrs. Haushofer would show up with a ladle in hand and Ed's protests would turn to moderate pleas. Mrs. Haushofer seemed quite certain she wouldn't lose an argument to this blonde young man, and sure enough, she never did.

A pen scratched down on a sheet of paper, and the plump old doctor – a former medical instructor from the university – glanced up to eye Ed from above the rims of his glasses. The pen scratched a little more, "What time did you wake up and get out of bed this morning?"

Ed adjusted the neckline of his undershirt after he'd slipped it back on over his head, "Woke up at eight-ish, got up sometime around eleven."

"What time did you go to bed last night?"

"I lay down at about seven thirty," Ed snatched up the red dress shirt given to him at Christmas, "don't know what time I fell asleep."

"And how are you feeling now?" the doctor tapped his pen on his sheet.

"Tired," Ed grumbled. It felt like his mind was trudging through waist deep mud and he'd been doing it all day; the frustration continued to grow.

"Why don't you spend the night, Edward?" Professor Haushofer watched Ed react warily to the suggestion, "my wife'll give you a nice, relaxing evening, the family will entertain Winry, and you can recuperate."

"No," Ed swatted away the 'helpful' hand of the doctor reaching forward to assist Ed with re-buttoning his shirt, "no thank you Professor."

"You really should, Edward," Hess added to the professor's plea.

Ed let the intrigued doctor watch him masterfully finish doing up his own shirt buttons one-handed without a second thought, "No, I'm sorry. Thanks for dinner, but I'd rather stay home."

Hess's arms refolded, his frown worsening and chin dimpling, "Edward, you were lucky to come out of your encounter the way you did."

It took a vast amount of the strength Edward had to refrain from pointing a finger at Hess and accusing his political cohorts of being the ones who'd attacked him.

"If someone is after you and Winry, shouldn't you want to stay somewhere safe?" the professor continued, "After your father, and now this, what if you're attacked in your home while you're so ragged?"

Ed gave a tug to his shirt and stood up. He didn't know which irritated him more, the fear of a home invasion being used to goad him into agreeing to stay with the Haushofers, or the fact that Ed hadn't even considered the possibility that these people would have the balls to attack him in his own home. It suddenly became a real fear, and he really didn't like the incursion of unease.

A disastrous melody of piano key strikes intruded, followed by a loud chorus of giggles and laughter that echoed into the room from the floor below.

Ed's uniquely golden eyes shot back to the doctor, "Can I be excused for a moment?"

The doctor looked back with interest, "I suppose…"

With a lowered brow, Ed made his way wordlessly out of the room uncontested – but it felt as though every eye followed him on his way through the hall and down the stairs.

Ed caught a full view of the open sitting room of the Haushofer house from the stairwell rail. Ed's frown struck, and sharply worsened as he eyed Albrecht and Heinz flanking Winry on the piano stool fronting the oversized instrument. Both boys had saddled up tight, and the hand Albrecht had placed on Winry's back gave Ed's right eyebrow fits.

Ed made his way down the remainder of the stairs and into the core of the house. "_What are you giggling at?_" a question asked in English, but everyone turned to look at him.

Winry grinned brightly, looking childishly amused, "_Albrecht and Heinz are showing me how to play… uh… this!_" her finger pointed to the single sheet of music that entertained them.

"Ode to Joy," the younger Heinz shrugged, his English well enough to understand, but not enough to reply, "it's easy enough."

Ed could only shrug as Winry swung back to her playing task; he didn't know how to play. But Elric eyes abruptly narrowed, holding the older Haushofer brother in contempt of his physical involvement with Winry. Ed had expressly forbid such a thing on at least three different occasions, the only exception being the Christmas party because of dancing – when Ed had brought that issue up with his father, Hohenheim had abruptly told his son to grow up. The Christmas party was not, however, a life time exemption. To make matters worse, Albrecht _knew _Ed was giving him _that_ look for _that _reason. Albrecht used his own dwelling as a safety net; he smiled quaintly at Ed, snuggled an arm around Winry's back, locked his hand onto her shoulder, and returned to involving himself with Winry's hands to educate her in the piano.

If Ed had any desire to stay at the Haushofer house, it instantly became _less._

Ed's hand slipped into his pants pocket, his chin sinking into his shirt collar, and he watched Albrecht guide Winry around on the ivory keys.

Son of a bitch; Ed wanted to pull his own hair out. The Elric could feel his ability to peacefully co-exist with the inhabitants of the entire planet run on empty. Ed felt like a five-year-old in need of throwing a really good tantrum to feel better, except he didn't have the energy to put into it. It was a struggle just to keep his mouth shut… he was a guest in this house after all, he had to keep some dignity about him.

Footsteps were heard coming down the stairs and Ed looked back to see Professor Haushofer making his way down. Hess was already standing on the stairs, three quarters of the way down, eyeing the room.

Drying her hands off with a dishtowel, Mrs. Haushofer made her way into the room. She applauded her husband and the other men from the upper floor for having enough sense to know when to come down. Dinner was almost ready and they should be seated. She smiled at Ed and patted him on his un-bruised cheek. Much to Ed's delight, she also swatted Albrecht's arm off of Winry, telling him to show more respect, and then took him by the ear into the kitchen to set the table. Professor Haushofer gave a pat to Ed's shoulder as he passed, and then took the escort mission – leading Winry into the kitchen. Ed moved to join the procession, but Hess stopped the Elric from following. Ed glanced back.

"I think you should take Karl up on his offer."

Ed took one of his deeper breaths of the day and sighed, scratching his fingers through his face.

Hess's words strengthened, "Look, if you're worried about Winry, don't let jealousy over Albrecht mar that—"

"Woah, who's jealous?" Ed stopped the conversation.

Hess blinked, "You're jealous."

"I am no—" Ed had to lower his voice, "I am not jealous over _Albrecht_ for anything."

Again Hess blinked, his words coming out flat, "Edward, apparently you need to be told you're jealous, so I'm telling you, you are jealous."

"No," an unfathomable amount of frustration circulated through Edward's veins. He was one thin thread away from punching something. Perhaps if he weren't so wound up, Ed might have managed to sound a little more composed, "Why does nobody listen to me? Winry's not one of the social club girls that Albrecht can just pick up and cozy up with whenever it's convenient for him!" Which wasn't _exactly _what had been going on, but that wasn't the point.

The proclamation managed to break the blank look Hess had worn on his face, and the man began to laugh, "Every young lady needs a knight in shining armour, it seems," a hand fell heavily onto Ed's shoulder, "fine, have it your way, but whatever threat you view Albrecht as, weight that against your ability to take care of her right now. You're out of sorts and you know it."

Ed's hand rubbed over his face. What a mess. Both Karl Haushofer and Rudolf Hess were members of this manic Nazi party, and it was this party's goon squad that had attacked him. Neither of these men knew, and now they were trying to shelter Ed and Winry from their own superior's wrath. These people had no idea what insanity was brewing above their heads and Edward wasn't in any position to tell them… and even if he tried, they wouldn't believe him. He'd probably get shot for defaming Adolf Hitler. To make matters worse, Envy was out there _somewhere._ Ed's motivation to get the measurements from the Thule Hall – like he'd planned to do the night his father had died – and leave town came back to him in a flood.

But Hess was right, and Ed wasn't able to hide it; he was lugging this awful feeling around like a ball and chain and it was exhausting. The Haushofers could keep them for one night.

* * *

Izumi acknowledged that she had a similar behavioural problem than Edward Elric did – she had instances where she would act on instinct first and consider the ramifications of her actions at a later point. Or just simply not care about the consequences of her actions… that happened once in a while. But Izumi thought of herself as being someone of good judgement and wisdom, so for this exercise she would display her ability for stealth; a task far harder than going in with alchemy blazing. With Dante around, Izumi didn't want to engage her without knowing more.

So the teacher found an excellent perch for herself in a broken down ventilation shaft overlooking things from the corner of the prime minister's office. She even had a little ledge for the coffee she'd gotten from the tax department's lunch room. Izumi's strategy for finding the room Mitchell, Dante and company had been holed up in was sound – follow the flocks of people. People reported to people, who reported to people, who reported to the top eventually. Here she was – literally at the top of this room.

For the majority of time that Izumi had watched, little Dante sat perched on the centring desk either cross-legged or with feet dangling over the edge. She spent most of her time playing with her little red-gem necklace, and Izumi could guess what that stone was made out of. What a terrifying thought. It made any idea Izumi had of quick-use alchemy null and void. If that was either a Red Stone or a Philosopher's Stone fragment, her alchemy would be disastrous – Izumi could _compensate _her actions and alchemy if it was a Red Stone, so she could work intuitively against it, but a Philosopher's Stone fragment was beyond what she knew how to handle. Since Izumi had no idea which one it was, it was best not to use alchemy at all.

Beyond the terrifying little demon's shiny toy was the frightening display of control she had over the room with four men in suits and ties, and of the Prime Minister especially. The ancient alchemist didn't do much; in fact she barely involved herself with anyone at all. But she had sleight of hand and suggestive words that changed the course of action for all of them. For the discussion of the Drachma letter, Dante childishly voiced an opinionated comment of 'I think its fake' and every man in the room concurred with _each other _that yes, it was a fraudulent letter. None of them ever turned to Dante for her opinion, she simply voiced that particular thought and the thought became fact. It looked suspiciously like brainwashing, except that the men in the room with Mitchell behaved incredibly normal. Even the incorporation of Dante's lies seemed to flow smoothly. It was terrifyingly unnerving.

And then there was Aisa. Izumi had never paid much attention to Aisa at any point in the journeying, and the teacher figured she knew why: Aisa didn't _do _anything. She sat in place, or stood to the side, or did as she was instructed, but otherwise she did nothing. Izumi would have thought someone that potentially bored would have a book, or knitting, or something homey to keep herself occupied. As someone who was apparently designated to look after 'Nina', Aisa didn't do much by way of caretaking either. She simply existed, and did little more than that.

By mid afternoon Izumi had lost track of how many people had come and gone from the office. One of the only things she really kept note of was that there were few men beyond those who seemed highest in rank that appeared affected by Dante's selective wording. She only spoke with any effect when certain people were present. Beyond that, not a single military officer had entered the room all afternoon, which was odd considering the military personnel were predominantly being used to counter Mustang's advancements.

Oh, and she also had a counter going for how often Aisa fetched coffee. This was trip number four. It took Aisa fifteen minutes to go and come back from wherever she needed to go for the drinks, and Izumi would make sure to catch the woman early enough that she would not extend the fifteen minutes – she did not need Dante coming out.

Izumi slipped out of her hideout. Her observational patience had run out ages ago.

Coming down from an overhead panel in a private washroom, Izumi hopped to the floor. She took a peek out into the hall to confirm Aisa was on her way, and then waited behind the door as the nurse's footsteps passed, before she slipped out into the hall behind her.

"Haven't they had enough caffeine by now?" Izumi's low call came out, pulling the woman to a stand still, "a few of them seem a little wired."

Nina Mitchell's nurse turned, "Good afternoon, Izumi."

Izumi replied without a greeting, "Where's Alphonse?"

"Excuse me?" Aisa blinked, "if you wish to speak with Dante, she's just down the hall."

"No," Izumi shook her head, her arms folding crossly, "I'm here to talk to you. Where's Alphonse?"

"He's missing," was the blunt answer.

Izumi's thoughts stumbled over the two simple words, "Missing? How can he be missing?"

"Circumstances occurred that cause the misplacement of Alphonse," Aisa shrugged, her hands clasping in front of her.

"What a load of bull," Izumi snarled. With a flash of rage in her eyes, Izumi's hands flew out – she would get an answer out of this woman.

"Stop!" Aisa raised her hands, holding them out in front of her body cautiously.

Izumi's motion stopped, her shoulders loosening.

"We've never been properly introduced, so unless you're prepared, it's not safe to do that around me," Aisa's hands retreated, "I don't advise clapping your hands."

Well, that was one of the stranger statements Izumi had heard over the last while. Her dark eyes slipped from one side of the hall to the other, "Why not?

It took a few moments for some kind of answer to be brought forth for Izumi's question. Aisa had stood motionless for quite some time, looking as though she'd thought over the question more than once. The seemingly insignificant woman extended an arm, and a hand, for Izumi to take. The teacher looked back at the nurse like she'd lost her mind.

"Go on," Aisa encouraged without a tinge of emotion to her words.

Again, Izumi's gaze shot around the empty hall, before she did take the step forward and gripped down onto Aisa's wrist, watching as the woman let her hand fall limp. Izumi looked at Aisa's complete indifference and then her dark eyes dug into the cool skin of the wrist she held. Izumi felt the heat of her own heartbeat skyrocket. She re-gripped her hand again and again around the wrist and forearm, her fingers digging in or holding gently, until finally Izumi drove forwards, her left hand gripping the cooled flesh of this woman's throat. The alchemy teacher stood silent in the hall, her fingers again shifting and resettling on her skin.

With the thrust of both her arms, Izumi threw herself back from Aisa, taking a few uneasy, wary steps backwards, "What…?"

Aisa's hands re-clasped in front of herself, "The blood in my body was consumed and my veins emptied. I've been embalmed with Red Water and Red Stones to sustain my existence. I have no heartbeat and no pulse."

Izumi shook her head, like she hadn't been able to understand what had been said.

"So I'm asking that you do not perform any rash transmutations around me. There will be consequences if you do."

"_What?_" Izumi choked; that was absolutely ridiculous, "wha... did Dante do this to you?"

"Dante executed the procedure," Aisa nodded.

"WHY?" Izumi raged much louder than even she'd realized.

"Research," Aisa answered with a shrug to her shoulders, "and necessity. So, if you're not as skilled as Dante and you clap your hands, you could blow a crater in the side of this structure. Please be careful, Izumi."

Being lectured over due diligence and care by… by _this_ woman was not something Izumi would even consider accepting. The teacher's words few out, the rage in her voice hugged by concern, "What makes you so important that Dante would do this to you?"

Aisa remained static, without an answer.

Izumi's teeth clenched, "What about all this makes Wrath _so _afraid of you?"

"You should calm down, Izumi, before Dante hears you," Aisa offered the warning.

Izumi would have none of it. Bursting from her stance with her left shoulder down, Izumi barrelled down on Aisa, running her shoulder into the woman's chest and continuing her charge down the centre of the hall with the woman. The farther Aisa was away from her power structure of Dante, the less danger she posed. The further away Izumi was from Dante and her little red necklace, the safer they would be. If this woman's body – her flesh and bones – were being preserved and sustained by Red Stones, then every action Aisa took, every motion she made, depleted the stones further. And if this woman was truly sustained by Red Stones, she would be able to withstand a massive assault and recover from it, showing no signs of damage, wear, or tear.

The two exploded through the window at the end of the hall, Izumi throwing both herself and this woman off of the sixth floor and into the air. Izumi's hands flew out as the ground shot towards them; if it was Red Stones and Red Water she was contending with, she knew exactly how her alchemy needed to be controlled. Izumi crashed her palms down for a handclap intended to soften their fall and ensnare Aisa into the earth.

That didn't happen.

The simple act of clapping her hands had rebounded on Izumi with more force than she'd ever felt or known possible – even her own failed human transmutation hadn't backfired like _this_. The transmutation spark Izumi generated reacted so violently it exploded with a shock wave. Amidst the blinding reaction, Izumi lost her feeling of the world around her. There was no concept of up or down, left or right, depth, width, or height – she should have hit the ground long ago. Izumi thought it was one of the strangest sensations she'd ever experienced. The teacher never saw the surging torrent enter the space she was in, and Izumi felt her entire existence become swallowed by the black, filthy flood with an intolerable crush. The pressure devoured her and the overwhelming sensation pounding her body became unimaginable. She couldn't force herself to scream if she'd needed to.

But for a moment, and only a moment, the alchemy teacher knew _everything._

And then it was gone.

"WAKE UP!" Alphonse gripped her shoulders.

Laying flat on her back, Izumi's eyes flew open, "What?"

"You're okay!" Alphonse squealed, flopping on top of his teacher and wrapping his arms around her neck.

"What?" Izumi looked around madly, feeling her body become free from the torrential pressure of _everything_. She sat up slowly in the white space with the young Elric clinging to her. In the corner of her eye, she saw Aisa laying motionless on the sensation-less white surface. Izumi's heart raced with panic, existing within a nightmare she'd never wanted to revisit, the fear alone able to make her sick. The woman who had desperately wanted to be a mother and barely had her chances, wrapped her arms tightly around Alphonse, fingers digging into his hair and shirt. She looked over her shoulder to the black monstrosity of the Gate and its wide open doors, wondering what the hell she could have possibly done to deserve being back here again with another one of her children.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**A/N:**

This chapter hated me… a lot. More than a lot. It was a struggle. AmunRa did a great job trying to fix it. Any errors left are my own.

I do believe the idea to give Ed a concussion was courtesy of Kristina Groves and Sidney Crosby. Get better you awesome people!


	37. Pages from the Journeyman's Voyage

**Part XXXVII – Chapter 88 – Pages in the Journeyman's Voyage**

The white space of the Gate was a lot different than Izumi had remembered. Maybe her imagination warped it over time, or maybe her perception of it had changed, or maybe it really was this way: it was calm. There were no eyes, no creaking door sounds, and no flashes of horror even though the Gate _had _momentarily shown her everything. The only truly overwhelming sensation had been the impact of _everything_ and even that had no one standout emotional response she could give to it. Despite how this realm seemed to be quite harmless, the gaping black monstrosity was pried wide open and it still terrified the woman to death.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Alphonse squealed, clinging to his bewildered teacher, his chin on her shoulder and his words echoing behind her ears.

"What?" Izumi still felt inexplicably lost; what the hell just happened?

Alphonse continued to cling to her and babble on, "There was a bang and Diana wailed and then you and Aisa appeared! It was crazy. I'm so glad you're okay, I didn't know what was wrong."

Izumi allowed Alphonse to hang off of her while she looked over to Aisa on the ground, still caught up in the overwhelming journey that only lasted mere seconds, "Alphonse…" it was baffling to have these words in her mouth, "why are you at the Gate?"

"Dante brought me," the young Elric sat back, sitting down on his knees in front of Izumi as the woman's hands rubbed through her face, "she wants me to find out how to get my brother back."

Izumi's hands slowly slipped from her eyes, but never actually landed in her lap. Finally able to see the young man clearly, Izumi stared back to Alphonse with a widening awe, her eyes feverishly investigating the youngest Elric who quickly grew uncomfortable with the examination. Izumi reached out with both her hands and grabbed Alphonse at his ears, turning his head, eyeballing him, and examining him, before her focus drilled deep into Alphonse's eyes, "What the hell happened to you? How'd this happen?" Izumi's heart suddenly raced, one hand frantically dug through his hair while another sharply pulled up his shirt, "What did it take?"

"Take?" Al floundered backwards from his teacher, trying to crawl away on his backside, "what do you mean, what happened? Nothing happened to me!"

On hands and knees Izumi began to pursue the scrambling boy, but stopped; Al did _look_ perfectly fine. Then again, so did she, "I told you the cost of going to the Gate. What did it take from you?"

"Nothing," Al answered frantically, turning his eyes to the Gate, "Diana brought me. I think Diana absorbs the sacrifice to get here and then she quells the Gate. It doesn't attack, or converse, or anything; it's just there."

After everything Izumi had read, understood, thought she understood, and completely could not understand, Alphonse's explanation made sense. Her focus turned inwards and Izumi began to search herself for what she had sacrificed for this trip. No matter how hard she looked or felt within herself, physically or mentally, she found nothing to suggest that any part of her was sacrificed. If anything, she felt a touch better than she had before the trip. The woman's hands again extended and she took hold of the soft, round cheeks on Al's face, the back of one hand brushing his hair off of his forehead. The fear in her heart that something had again been taken from one of these two Elric boys eased, but her concerns remained. Her hands moved and pulled the boy's eyes open wide, peering in with trepidation and curiosity.

A distracting sound came from beyond Alphonse's shoulder and the boy and his teacher looked to what lay at the foot of the Gate. Izumi's ire rose as she came to her feet and she lent a hand down to bring Alphonse standing as well; both watched as Aisa stirred and pulled to her knees.

"Damn," the woman spoke clear as day, "Dante will be incensed with you."

Izumi's hand patted down on top of Al's bed of messy hair and she waited for Aisa to rise to her feet before calling out, "Why am I here?" of all the places in the world, or not in the world, she did not want to be, "How did I get here?"

"I told you," the woman responded firmly, "not to clap your hands!"

"I'm a better alchemist than you seem to give me credit for," Izumi barked hotly, considering who _her _teacher had been, "I compensated for your flesh and Red Stones; what the hell happened?"

Aisa began to approach. Her footsteps made no sound and caused no drift in the air at the mouth of the gate, but her advance caused Alphonse to back away. Both Izumi and Aisa poured their focus over the cautiously retreating Elric.

"Al?" Izumi's brow rose.

Al responded hesitantly, looking intently at Aisa, "There's something not right with you…"

Aisa stopped her approach, "There's something not right with you as well."

Izumi stepped back to take Al's hand, keeping her focus on Aisa.

Al's grip tightened around his teacher's hand, frowning a little as he tried to figure out what exactly it was that wasn't right. It was strange that he'd get this feeling from her at the Gate of all places, when he'd never felt anything from her before, "What's so different now that you're at the Gate?"

"Does Al's perception of you here have anything to do with all those Red Stones in your body, Aisa?" Izumi's hand added a squeeze to the young Elric's grip, looking down to catch his fascinated eyes fly wide.

"Is that what's wrong with you?" Al chirped, calling for an explanation.

Aisa did not answer.

Izumi frowned a little; she had no more of a vibe off of Aisa than she had when they'd been in Central – what was Al seeing? Maybe she wasn't seeing it because they'd travelled to the Gate together? "She's technically dead Al; it's the stones keeping her alive."

Why would someone do that? What would be the purpose of doing that to human being? Al couldn't wrap his head around what Izumi had told him, not that Izumi had been able to either. Red Stones gave the homunculus their strengths, but homunculi were also incomplete people. "Are you a person?" Al asked, "you're not a homunculus or something?"

The nurse almost looked like the question had made her laugh, "No."

"Are you some kind of super-human this way?" the young boy's eyes shot around in thought.

Aisa only shrugged, "I honestly don't know, since that's not my purpose."

Izumi's dark eyes narrowed over Aisa, "So how the hell did you manage to transport me here? By the time I'd clapped my hands, I'd worked out any possible link I could have made to your Red Stones."

"Your compensation was too weak; I told you not to clap your hands," Aisa drew a frown through her face.

"I didn't have to compensate, I redirected the power of the Red Stones away from my base transmutation," Izumi's eye twitched at the woman.

The riled alchemist didn't change Aisa's response, "Your compensation factors were too weak."

"Answer my _question,_" Izumi snarled, "what did I do to get us here and what do I do to get us all home?"

Aisa sighed at the stubborn woman, "The only people who you can control at the Gate are yourself and I. Alphonse is tied to Diana; he is responsible for figuring out how to get himself home."

"I'm not leaving without him," Izumi's grip on Alphonse strengthened.

"Then we're stuck here," Aisa informed the group. The woman's brow then lifted like she'd had something more to say, but her motions ended, her posture unlocked, and she gave a curious look to the young Elric, "So, Alphonse Elric, can we now discuss what happened to your eyes?"

"Huh?" Al blinked, "My eyes?"

Izumi's exhale was loud enough to catch Al's full attention and the young man looked to her as she knelt down. Izumi's hand swept through his hair and, like she'd done when she'd first seen him at the Gate, the teacher's fingers tried to hold the boy's eyes wide as she looked deep into them, "That's why I thought it had taken something from you," her hands slipped away, patting down onto his shoulders, "your eyes are gold like your brother's."

"What?" Al looked at his hands as though there was some way they could show him his reflection, "but my eyes are grey."

"I would think something like this would have been noteworthy enough for Dante to have mentioned," Aisa looked at Alphonse curiously, "but she hasn't made any note of this change. What happened between the time you last saw Dante and now?"

The young man could only shake his head – how could his _eyes _have changed colour? How could he believe this without seeing it? "I've just been at the Gate. The only thing that happened was the surge that sent Dante away. And it wasn't even that strong." Al looked up to Izumi, "it just kinda blew by me… and really, Dante just vanished. When it was done it hadn't felt like anything special had happened."

Aisa's eyes slipped away from the figures and to the Gate.

"Did something happen to Dante when the surge sent her away?" Alphonse called out.

The nurse's gaze narrowed, "No."

* * *

Hermann and Edward stood verbally handcuffed to the corner of the ladies section in a wide department store and Hermann was quite certain he was less bothered by this than Edward was. Though Ed hadn't said anything, the younger man occasionally huffed and sighed and hummed and grumbled and shuffled and rolled his eyes, all to the older man's amusement. By this point however, both of them had some form of 'disgruntled male twitching' going on. This was their third store and both of them were bordering on astoundingly bored.

"The girls seem to be having a difficult time picking out Winry's new coat…" Hermann aired out the beginnings of a conversation.

Ed sunk his chin into his scarf a little further, the creases on the bridge of his nose became a little darker, and the downturn in the corners of his mouth sunk into the scarf. "It seems that way…" his words were emphatically enunciated.

Hermann nodded slowly, trying not to laugh at Ed's reply; he was quite certain a response along the lines of 'how hard is it to pick out a coat?' with a number of expletives inserted along the way was being restrained. The scientist decided that a topic not involving their unmoving presence in the ladies department was in order, "How've the headaches been?"

Ed's brow rose, "I haven't had any since Sunday, actually."

"Just the lethargy?" Hermann asked.

"Just that," Ed mumbled.

Hermann mulled over the response a little. He had half a mind to take Edward home and let Mathilde escort Winry around for the remainder of the day. "That should clear up over the next few days, just rest with the Haushofers until you're feeling better. They treated you well over night, didn't they?"

"Yeah…" Ed gave a sigh, "they did. And then I didn't haul my ass out of bed until mid-morning, so now I'm being told I have to stay there again tonight."

This was something befuddling for Hermann: how he could watch Ed accept people's offerings, even the ones he and Tilly gave, and be so difficult, reluctant, and stubborn about it all. Edward did not have to stay with the Haushofer's, yet he still accepted their hospitality even with his fuss. Something Hermann had come to understand was that Ed tended to cave or relent more often than not – his contrary protests were sometimes easily overcome. It was as though Edward wished to not be welcomed or invited, or be a concern to anyone, but he still had a desire to be acknowledged in some manner. There had to be something about the younger man that Hermann wasn't quite figuring out that would explain this behaviour. He honestly doubted Ed was ever going to tell him and Hermann was fine with that, but it still made Edward Elric a fascinating puzzle to mull over.

Today's puzzle piece was the frown Edward began to wear after mentioning the Haushofers; it gradually soured, looking more miserable over time.

"What?" Hermann prodded curiously.

Ed withered further, the folds in his scowl darkening.

Hermann's expression widened silently.

Edward finally sputtered like a clogged engine and grumbled his concerns, "Albrecht's been following Winry around the house like he wants her to think he's some kind of plush puppy dog; it's pathetic to see a guy behave that way. She pats him on the head and he wags his tail – who _does_ that?" Ed snorted, "Considering his tactics, it's a wonder he's got himself a reputation at all."

Hermann caught himself laughing at Ed's concerns, much to the Elric's dismay… but _honestly? _Did he really see Albrecht as any kind of danger to Winry? "I thought you'd already apprised Albrecht of your plans for his elaborate execution should he try anything with Winry." A malicious twinkle appeared in his eye and Hermann was more than delighted to continue this conversation with a suggestive thought, "And what would you do, Edward Elric, if Winry decided she actually wanted to snuggle the puppy?"

It took all of the companion's willpower not to absolutely split with laughter at the utterly _mortified_ look Ed gave him at the suggestion.

As though the stars had aligned for Hermann's amusement today, Ed flustered when Winry suddenly appeared. Hermann watched Winry pay no mind to Ed's quickly stifled reaction; she smiled sweetly at Hermann, put herself toe to toe with Edward, and began whispering.

Whispering was pointless; Hermann's audible recognition of English was non-existent, so if Winry was trying to hide the sounds of displeasure in her voice over the selection of winter coats, he figured she should give up the charade. Both Winry and Edward had an uncanny ability to project themselves, which was either a godsend or a detriment to everyone around them. Hermann watched from the corner of his eye, noting Ed's dwindling patience and Winry's mounting frustration in tone and body language. It was fascinating to see anyone within Edward's sphere, since he still kept a 'beware of man, do not approach' sign around his neck. Hermann wondered if Ed was actually easily accessible to everyone and he just wore the angry warning sign to deter people from trying; like the big angry dog was nothing more than a small noisy mutt.

As Hermann refocused on the scene, the scientist got to watch the stubborn scowl on Ed's face attempt to stare Winry down. Winry responded with a matching stubborn scowl. Ed's look soured and Winry's followed suit. Golden eyes pinched followed shortly by narrowed blue ones. Ed transformed his reaction into a wrinkled glare and Winry stiffened her shoulders and glared right back. Hermann had to bite his lip and look away to keep from laughing. He was too busy trying to contain himself to notice who won, only knowing it had ended when Hermann saw Winry sulking away.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

Ed's upper lip creased, "Winry wants me to ask you, _nicely,_ if we can go to one more store. I told her to go look around for another five minutes and fetch your wife if she _really _can't find anything."

Speaking of his wife, Hermann suddenly switched the tracks his thoughts ran along, "Say Edward, Mathilde received a fascinating telegram for me the other day."

"Yeah?" Ed glanced over.

Hermann nodded, "I've been invited to an informal conference in Prague on a number of scientific endeavours. Tsiolkovsky will be going, so I'm planning on attending… would you care to join me?"

The anomaly that was Edward Elric resurfaced. On any other occasion, the chance to travel and meet some of the most profound scientists in their fields should have been something Ed would have jumped on, but for this invite, the Elric seemed hesitant.

"When is it?" Ed raised a single brow.

"Early in March, I don't remember the exact date," Hermann continued the conversation, despite Ed's lack of enthusiasm, "I even heard that Einstein is mulling over the invite he's been given."

Ed gave a sarcastic laugh, "What a hack."

Although Hermann was aware that Edward was not one of Einstein's fans, he couldn't help but wonder about the reaction, "Einstein? What's wrong with him?"

The excitement that always seemed to appear when Edward was allowed to exist in a scientific element flew out in his words and gestures, wrapping around the Elric like a flowing cape, "He's dangerous; he understands what he's doing on a formulaic basis, but he doesn't understand the inherent power of that matter," Ed snorted and shook his head, "a scientist needs to _understand _their science and he just wants to plot its formula, arrange its coordinates… dissect, control, hand hold, and manipulate it. That kind of scientist scares the hell out of me," Hermann watched the little flame the was dancing in behind Edward's eyes, "you can't dissect or assemble matter, elements, or laws of the universe first, then figure out what can be done with them, and _then _understand what the heck you've just done. You have to take the time and let yourself understand why your science behaves the way it does, and then you can take it apart safely. All three sciences function the same that way and they all bite you in the ass if you don't respect them, especially if 'understanding' comes last."

Edward Elric spoke of science like a preacher – it was one of the few things he talked about definitively and absolutely about, like there was no way he could be wrong. His approach to science was completely backwards to anyone else's he'd ever encountered, in fact he spoke a fair bit like an alchemist, yet the Elric had an astounding ability to grasp and understand scientific concepts without a lick of teaching, or in the most minimal amounts of study time. For the life of him, the rocket scientist couldn't figure out _why _Edward didn't just step up and make a name for himself in the scientific communities; he could be pure genius. It was like he was content being an unknown, doing his own thing. Surely, he had to have a reason for that.

Reasons would have to wait for the next department store; Hermann's train of thought came to a stop at the red light put up by his wife and Winry's appearance. The nearly-comical annoyance Ed didn't voice and the frustration Winry wouldn't speak of flared up again. Both husband and wife gave a shrug and a sigh to it. Tilly led the way out of the store, followed closely by Winry. Hermann was next and Edward lagged behind, his shoulders raised to his ears and his hand shoved into his pocket like a sulking child. Hermann paused to let Ed catch up, slapping a hand down on the Elric's back when he passed. Although the trip was growing tiresome, Hermann's greedy little desire to figure out more about Edward Elric would not oppose Winry spending another hour in a store.

* * *

One of the few times that Mustang would remove the eye patch and expose the wound on his face was so he could look through a set of binoculars. The sensation of having the binoculars touching his face and squinting the dysfunctional left eye made things significantly more comfortable. The image he got in his right eye was crystal clear – the day was nice and warm, the sun was out and unobstructed by clouds, the grass and trees were full of green, and the picture in his eye of Central City should have been quite pleasant; the birds were even chirping in the trees. Yet the binoculars were soon lowered after Mustang had gotten his fill of the scene at Central headquarters.

"What the hell causes that kind of damage?" to double check what he'd seen, Mustang brought the binoculars up again to be certain he wasn't imagining things.

At the spot where Izumi and Aisa had erupted, the grass below had been burnt to a crisp, the white walls of the headquarters buildings had been singed black, and _every _third floor window had been blown out – third floor windows were blown out for blocks.

Havoc could only shrug, "Central's not talking, but buzz says Aisa was involved," the officer rolled his cigarette through his teeth, "and someone fitting Izumi's description was identified by a security guard in the building."

From their rooftop perch, Mustang looked over to Havoc as the man changed the rounds in his rifle, "And no one clearly saw who was involved?"

"No one official," Havoc shook his head, "just protesters who looked over with enough time to see two people 'falling' out of the top floor window and then witness the 'bang'."

"That's definitely an alchemical burn on the building, but…" Mustang placed the binoculars aside once more, "assuming that it's Izumi and Aisa involved, what the hell was going on? Why were they falling out a window?"

Havoc gave a snort, snapping his lighter and lighting his cigarette, "That's why they pay _you_ the big bucks."

Mustang nearly laughed at that, "Nobody's paying me at the moment, that's for sure."

Unable to grasp the oddity of the situation, Roy picked up the binoculars once again and returned to surveying the damage. He'd never seen an alchemical reaction behave linearly before – assuming that's what this was, since there was no other explanation for it. Windows on the second and fourth floors closest to the impact zone _should _show signs of damage, but they did not. The only sign of evidence that this reaction was not entirely linear was the burn marks on the building and on the ground. For the life of him, the flame alchemist could not figure out what the heck had happened and what would have caused not only this kind of damage, but caused two people to disappear. Where did they go?

One thing that Mustang was hoping for was that if Izumi was nearby then so was Alphonse.

"At least the mystery explosion served a purpose," Havoc tucked away his lighter and began to wipe down his weapon, "it distracted Central long enough that seizing the southwest was a cakewalk."

This was true; Mustang, his troops, allies, associates, and supporters now claimed the entire southern third of Central City. Mustang's next target was the eastern ward and Old Central, which – depending on who you asked – was either part of the eastern ward or something 'more eastern' than the eastern ward and stood as a completely independent district. For a historical site, it was grossly under maintained and over run with the poor and homeless. It was a dirty fingerprint on the eastern fringe of the Central City map; Old Central would be easy to take, but the whole of the eastern ward might be more of a challenge, even if that's where Mustang was currently perching himself for this view.

"Sirs."

Both Havoc and Mustang turned at the request of Sergeant Fuery, whose head had poked up from the roof hatch atop the building.

"Um…" the young officer adjusted his glasses, "there's a situation downstairs – we need you."

Mustang and Havoc exchanged a concerned glance. "Situation?" Mustang began refitting his eye patch.

"Yeah…" Fuery aired out slowly, hesitant to give out much more, "you really should come down to the lobby – both of you."

This was neither the time nor the place for any kind of 'situation'; they were thin for this surveillance exercise and the last thing Mustang needed was for someone to take advantage of that. Both officers slid down the ladder into the loft of the building, following Fuery as he led them out of the upper reaches of this office building and down into the heart of the structure. The building's stairwell cut straight up the centre of the complex and let out into the security lobby – a lobby that was occupied by a handful of officers in Mustang's security regiment. As the pairs of boots echoed off the final few steps and the stairwell let everyone out into the room, the movement around him stopped and Mustang's advancement into the lobby slowed.

Hawkeye stood in the centre of the room, weapon in her right hand, left arm holding a 'prisoner', even though Mustang had told his officers not to take prisoners. Her prisoner of choice stiffened Mustang's shoulders, tightened his jaw a little firmer, and left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable. With a deep breath and slow exhale to follow, Mustang's footsteps echoed into the silent room as he walked forward.

"General Hakuro, what brings you my way?"

The older officer, with his hands clasped freely behind his back, chest pumped proudly, stared sternly towards Mustang, "I came to negotiate with you."

"Negotiate?" it was a very short sentence that had a tidal wave of meaning for Mustang. What the hell could he negotiate with Hakuro over? Even as one of the highest ranking generals in the military, serving the prime minister directly, General Hakuro had very little negotiating power.

But the General quickly qualified his remark, "The terms of my squadron's surrender."

Mustang's footsteps came to a stop in the middle of the deathly silent lobby. The good eye Mustang looked forward with narrowed, "I'm not taking prisoners."

"Then take their _allegiance_," Hakuro's words were heavy, bitter, and crass; like the action of offering up his men was not something he was doing willingly.

"Why?" Mustang had to know.

Hakuro's jaw rolled and his eyes slipped away for a moment as he thought, before returning to address the rebellious officer, "Orders are being given that I'm not willing to follow, and I won't ask my officers to follow them either. I gave them the choice of going under the command of another officer, or deserting, or if this city and country meant anything to them, they could align their support with you."

It was an astounding compliment to be given in a very backwards and subtle way, yet the narrowed eye Mustang held Hakuro in darkened and he glanced around the lobby where his own silent men stood, "What orders?"

Again Hakuro paused and took a look around the room before the steadfast, solid glare he wore returned to Mustang, "The safety of the population in Central City is not on the list of priorities that was handed to us. Somebody in this _democratic_ aristocracy wants a bloodbath."

"If your men are giving their support and allegiance to me, I'll accept it," Mustang replied to the reluctant General's offering, "and what about you?"

"I have more important things to take care of," Hakuro answered abruptly and heavily.

"I can use a man like you, General Hakuro," Mustang's offer came out quicker than he would have liked, but still rang firm and clear - if the general was giving up his men, why not offer to take in the leader of the pack as well.

Hakuro laughed and the solid rock the man projected softened a little with the sound, sounding nearly sarcastic, "I don't want to be used by you, _Brigadier _General Mustang."

It took all of Mustang's strength not to roll his eye or scoff at the tone Hakuro used to address him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, as much of an asset as it would be to have Hakuro around, and how much of a giddy child he might have felt like for being able to put the general under his thumb, Mustang was mostly thankful that he wasn't going to have to deal with the dynamics of having Hakuro around.

The hands Hakuro had kept locked behind his back came free and the older man walked forwards, coming to a stop in front of Mustang. The two men shared a cold, silent stare for several long moments before the general pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket.

"Here."

Mustang slowly took the offering and opened the sheet, his eye widening as he began to read the original print of the communiqué issued from Drachma to Central over annexation in the north and Armstrong's actions. "_You _gave this to the Central Times?" Mustang's eye drilled through the sheet.

"The government had it for days," Hakuro snapped his military jacket straight, taking a step back from Mustang, "no one had done a thing about it, like they hadn't noticed or they didn't care. Our land to the north, our men in battle, and our own people upset at our walls… none of it seems to matter. For some reason, we don't matter anymore."

Slowly Mustang re-folded the sheet, watching the frustration boil through Hakuro.

"You know what does matter? Mitchell's little girl," the general scoffed, finally turning away from Mustang and walking past Hawkeye as he let himself out of the building, "but I have my own that matters more. Good day."

The silent room filled with fascinated eyes watched as Hakuro exited the building, taking his heavy, angry, and frustrated aura with him. Havoc nearly startled Mustang as he let a long, drawn out whistle blow the situation off of everyone's shoulders. With a sigh, Mustang let go of the tension he'd locked himself up with and looked to Hawkeye who still stood in the centre of the room. Her brow rose.

"How many do we get?" the senior officer asked.

"Thirty five," the major responded.

Mustang was almost tempted to give off the same whistle Havoc had – thirty five military officers once assigned directly under Hakuro had to be decent acquisitions, "I suppose…" it was a greedy little thought that suddenly became highly plausible, "we could take the east tonight."

* * *

Ed figured the only reason he went back to work on Friday was because he was so absolutely sick and tired of sitting around at home feeling like a lump on the sofa that he was actually hoping work would invigorate him in some way. Get out! Talk with people! Perform menial tasks. Absorb some kind of energy from people around him. The outing just made him more tired and the urge to put his head down on the desk and zone out was a little overwhelming.

To make matters worse, this new _professor_ – at about one hundred years old – had completely set up shop in his father's old office. Ed had forgotten the new teacher had arrived on Monday and it had probably been a bad time for Ed to abandon the old coot. Great first impression; he certainly hoped the old man understood the circumstances, since Ed still wore the remnants of a lovely shiner around his left eye.

And as Edward walked into his father's old office that Friday morning, what turned out to be the most draining encounter of all was not the ancient teacher he had to work with, or the mountain of work waiting to be completed…

Ed walked into this office at quarter after seven that morning and saw that his father was gone. Every sense that the room had once said 'this was Hohenheim's office' had been removed, replaced, or changed in some way – it even smelt different. The whole moment had taken Ed by surprise. Ed had emptied the room of his father's personal effects, but left everything else pertinent to the job alone. He'd left it just as his father always kept it and none of that existed anymore. The people Ed knew were still the same, the associates his father kept were still the same, the house was still the same, Hohenheim's bedroom was still exactly the same, but his father's footprint in this one particular part of the world had been erased. Ed was ready to write the day off and head home before he'd convinced himself to step through the doorframe.

It had become a little hard to fight through the day ever since.

"Generally, osmosis is something students attempt," a voice mused, "I didn't think it worked for organizing paperwork."

Ed fell out of his chair with a yelp. Holy shit, he had put his head down – how long had he been out? The Elric spun around wildly and ended up face to face with a grinning Rudolf Hess; thank god it wasn't the instructor.

"What do you want?" Ed asked abruptly, still feeling a little hazy from the sudden jolt.

The man shook his head, "Just came by to see how you were. Karl told me in class that he'd driven you in for work today. You sure you're up for it?"

Ed's reply was fronted by a yawn he tried viciously hard to restrain, "I'm fine."

"Well it's good to see you out at least," Hess mused as he brought up his briefcase stuffed with notes and sat it down on Ed's desk, "I only have a few minutes before my next class, but I've been meaning to get something to you since Tuesday. I'd completely forgotten about this when I'd gone to bring in the doctor to Karl's place."

Ed stared blankly as Hess rummaged in the briefcase.

"Here we are," the man produced a thin white envelope and snapped the crisp flap up. Ed's golden eyes curiously watched as Hess produced two thick slips of paper from the sleeve and hand them over, "for your birthday."

Wrinkling his nose, Ed took hold of the slips. Each time he read them, and then re-read them to make sure he was reading them right, the Elric's face fell a little further, "… Orchestra tickets?" Ed didn't even know if he _liked _the German orchestra. He didn't exactly have any opinion on classical or instrumental music one way or another. What the hell was he supposed to do at a concert?

"Yes, for tomorrow night. It's a little short notice, so I hope you're not doing anything," Hess gave a nod.

Ed flipped the tickets over, read them again, and continued to look blankly at the gesture. Finally, after puzzling over any possible relationship Edward Elric might have with classical music, Ed re-read the full description on the face of the ticket, choked on his gasp, and abruptly handed them back.

"I can't accept this."

Hess looked back at Ed with a good deal of confusion, "Why not?"

Ed's jaw could have fallen off, "Christ! Were you not paying attention when you paid for them? I can't accept that."

The financial concern was not shared by the man handing him the tickets, "I got them from the event organizer; he's one of our party supporters. We have a mutual promotional arrangement and they cost me next to nothing," Hess slipped the tickets back into the crisp envelope, "treat yourself and introduce Winry to the finer side of German culture instead of the doldrums she always has to be a part of with you."

Choosing to ignore the implication that his company was something less than pleasant, Ed paled as the tickets were re-offered to him. Beyond the fact that Ed figured he would have had to starve for a week to afforded the tickets on his own, Ed didn't know if he _owned _something nice enough to attend, let alone Winry. He hadn't really ever mingled with high society… classical music was high society, wasn't it? That price was absolutely high society at the very least – that upper class still existed despite the depression. Ed's eyes shifted through the room hesitantly.

"They're a gift, Edward," Hess's shoulders fell, "accept them like that. Get out of the house for a night and have a treat."

Giving the envelope a wary eye, Ed's single hand came up and took hold on the end of the gift, "Alright."

Now Edward Elric had a whole host of problems – most of them requiring him to find something to wear on short notice and figuring out how he was supposed to interact with the concert crowd. You could judge people's worth by these kinds of events, where they sat, and who they sat with. Maybe he just wouldn't mingle and keep the interactions to smiling and nodding.

"They're in a section of private balcony seats that we normally have reserved…"

This just got worse.

"… and there'll be about ten other people with you. They're political associates of mine, big players in the Nationalsozialist…"

And worse yet.

"… so you'll have good company." Hess gave a shrug and a smile.

The envelope of tickets hung in Ed's left hand and he allowed a disapproving frown to slowly overtake him, "I don't need your propaganda assault like this, Rudolf. I know what you guys do already. I don't do politics, so trying to coerce me into your fold isn't going to work."

Hess laughed, snapping his briefcase shut, "This isn't propaganda or coercion; it _is_ a nice night out with proper German society. If you learn something from it, or if you don't, it's no mind to me, I just hope you have a good time."

What a slimy son-of-a-bitch… Ed searched for a reason to stand up and clock him. That was the biggest load of bullshit he'd heard in ages.

"I have to get to my next class, so if I don't catch you before the day is out, have a good weekend," Hess announced as he made his way out of the office, leaving no room for any further protest from Edward.

And none was forthcoming, Ed was too busy fuming over being suckered into these two tickets that promised rich people, fancy clothes, politics, classical music, and god knows what else. He couldn't excuse himself from it at this point; Hess could easily follow up and see if he went or not. The envelope of tickets looked back at Ed like some kind of giggling monster, like someone was having a good laugh at his uncomfortable expense. Ed sighed and tossed the envelope into his briefcase.

* * *

"This just doesn't make any sense," Russell's forehead hit the table emphatically, sending a few of his papers flying and sending Fletcher scurrying after them, "there is no way this is right."

"Maybe we're over thinking things," the younger brother returned the sheets to the table.

The older brother barked out a laugh, sitting himself up again, "No, it's all a forgery. Someone went to a lot of trouble to clean this up; they even had the remains 'cremated'."

At home in their study room in Xenotime, Fletcher pulled himself back into a chair around this oversized table covered in medical documents his older brother had 'borrowed' from the hospital's records the night before. Any and every document concerning Gillian Atropos, aka Aisa, was on this table.

"It makes sense that she was listed as an organ donor. If she was expecting to be harvested in any way, why not make it official," Russell's hands fished through the mess of documents to pull out the donor information sheets, "and lo and behold several of her internal organs were donated to people, schools, organizations, labs – organs that _won't work _since they're poisoned with red water, yet here's the surgery record for the procedure." Russell's fingers drummed atop the papers covering a wooden table, "but there's no record she was castrated."

"Can you find the recipients of the organ donations?" Fletcher asked.

Russell shook his head, "Protected documents in other people's files; I couldn't get'em."

"How about the doctor who did the surgery?" the younger brother suggested.

The older brother's head continued to shake, "Can't find the man anywhere. It's like he vanished," a sarcastic laugh made its way out of Russell's mouth, "hey, it's like he never existed. What a surprise."

Fletcher's face twisted at his brother's attitude, "I think you've been working on this for too long."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Russell conceded, rubbing a hand through one eye and sweeping the papers into the centre of the table, "I think the fact that I can't find anything on the donation procedure just means it didn't happen. I wish I knew where to look for the truth about this woman and what happened to her, so I can find the string to unwind all the lies."

"Need a break?" a chirpy voice called from behind the door of the room as it pushed open.

Fletcher folded his arms and put his chin down on the table, smiling sweetly at their visitor, "Hi Roze."

"We have guests," the woman from Lior clasped her hands in front of herself.

Russell turned in his chair, throwing an arm over the back as he looked at the door, "Yeah?"

"Hi boys," Maria Ross stepped into the room with the wave of her hand, instantly dispensing of the tension Russell had been creating with his frustrations, "how's it going?"

"Hey lieutenant," Russell grinned, stretching his back and pulling to his feet, "it's not going at all... but when did you get in?"

"About an hour ago," Maria looked out into the hall, holding her arm out and stepping fully into the room once Brigitte had taken her hand – the officer pulled the lost little German through the door while she looked around at her new scenery.

Brigitte's arrival pulled Fletcher out of his seat and brought Russell over to the door.

"Hey Miss B, welcome to Xenotime; city of lies, atrocity, and other incredible screw ups," was Russell's greeting.

Fletcher kicked his brother in the shin for the remark and smiled sweetly at the women who'd joined them, "Don't mind him, he's frustrated and overtired. Someone should put him down for his afternoon nap."

Brigitte gave the two brothers she'd barely seen while they'd been in Central City a wary eye for their antics.

In actuality, Xenotime was one of the safer locations Mustang could have sent Lieutenant Ross with young Brigitte; anything that had happened with Aisa and Dante in the city had happened months ago. On its own, Xenotime was still in recovery from all its problems with Red Water, so security was extra diligent. It was also one of the last places Mustang figured he could send the child and have her be found. At one point, he'd considered sending her west to be with the Hughes' or south to Rizembool or Dublith, but all of those options were foreseeable – sending Brigitte and Lt Ross to Xenotime simply made no sense, so it made sense to Mustang to send them there. He could also have Lieutenant Ross keep tabs on the Tlingums and their investigation of Aisa and Diana's origins.

Fletcher and Roze were given the honour of showing Brigitte around the Tlingum's property, leaving Maria with a load of luggage and the unhappy elder brother. Honestly, after the trip they'd had to get into the city, Maria wasn't sure she'd be able to give the miserable boy any empathy. The officer was sore and tired and she gave a long, strong stretch to work out the muscles in her back.

"You've really got nothing at all with all this information?" Maria's arms fell to her sides, watching Russell take himself back to his chair at the table.

"I've got nothing useful, how about that?" Russell qualified, slouching in his seat.

"Alright," Maria sighed, sitting down in one of the empty chairs around the table, "what kind of useless nothingness do you have?"

Russell twisted his face, sweeping the blonde hair off of his forehead before snagging a few sheets off the tabletop, "Gillian Atropos died overnight, her child was stillborn, most of her organs were donated and her remains were cremated. All of the doctors involved with her child's birth, their deaths, her surgery, her autopsy… even the person who runs the crematorium don't exist. Or if they do, I can't find them."

Maria had to concur, that was a whole lot of nothing, "Organ donor recipients?"

"Protected," Russell folded his arms, "I got that she was divvied up between people needing a donor and a couple organizations, because each destination had its own limited out-record, but I honestly don't think that _actually _happened."

"If she was full of Red Water, those organs couldn't have done any good for a recipient, could they?" the officer asked; Maria was still far behind on the alchemy learning curve.

Russell shook his head, "Naw, they would have been rejected or died out without a Red Water source. The organs would hold up against injury and handle surgery really well, but if they'd been artificially enhanced, they would wither without a continued Red Water source to supply them."

So much for the medical investigation, Maria thought, "So they left records that she was gutted for useless organs? I guess that makes sense if you're trying to hide someone performing a lengthy surgery for other purposes."

A response wasn't given to qualify Maria's thoughts. A pencil was taken up into Russell's left hand and he began tapping it off the table, his eyes piercing the walls as the young alchemist thought over the officer's statements, "She wasn't exactly gutted." Russell flew up straight in his seat, shuffling his papers around, "Aisa was cleaned out... but… but but but," papers flew and the travel weary officer watched the young man rip through his papers, "her reproductive system, lungs, and heart aren't documented anywhere as being taken out."

Lieutenant Ross sat silently, waiting for the young man to explain the importance – she'd learnt that it's best to never preempt a scientist's theory; they'd just cut you off anyways.

Russell snapped a sheet of paper up, "Her reproductive system is where the Red Stones would have crystallized... you need your heart to pump your blood and lungs to give air to your voice," the eldest Tlingum brother let his arm fall, the sheet of paper snapping through the air as it moved. His face twisted a little with confusion and disgust, his shoulders falling in dismay, and Russell realized his research epiphany had only made things more confusing, "She was left with enough to make her appear human... but she's more or less hollow, and if she had full Red Water treatment, she's going to have a chunk of a Red Stone sitting in her lower core."

"I realize she shouldn't be alive in that state," Maria figured she was too worn out to respond with an appropriate amount of horror, "which is disturbing… but why in the world...?"

"Hell if I know," Russell tossed his sheet lazily onto the table as he blinked wide. He gave a wary look to the discarded sheet on the table before looking at Maria and then looking to the exiting door to the room, "I think I've been staring at this for too long, I need a nap. Damn."

* * *

Ed's pocket watch told him they'd been at this high-class masquerade for an hour of concert play and a half an hour of 'arrival', 'find your seat', plus 'my word, is that Hohenheim's son?' time. Edward blinked over to the miniscule table his cocktail glass sat on, watching the nearly unnoticeable balcony server swap it for a full one again. Honestly, Ed had never thought he'd find himself in a black and white penguin suit, but there he sat in one – completely pressed and packaged. The getup even had a handkerchief in his jacket pocket and a bowtie. He did _not_ like the bowtie; at least with a neck tie you could loosen it easily. Whomever had polished his shoes had enjoyed themselves far too much, because they had more glare than the waxed floor. He felt horribly out of place.

Ed was also extremely aware that Winry felt out of place. Winry ended up in some sleeveless, olive green silk dress. The fabric hung off her shoulders, scooped down modestly in front but left her back wide open. It stretched nearly to her ankles in places, had a hemline that made no sense, and a waist line that snuggled her hips. Her hair was wound up and once again pinned to her head. At least Winry found a white shawl she liked to go with things.

When the orchestra conductor raised his arms to the audience, and then his voice, Ed glanced to Winry as she leaned in.

"Is he signalling intermission?" she whispered.

"Sounds like it," Ed responded, watching the crowd start to murmur into life.

Winry gave a sharp sigh and rolled her eyes – the girl's proper posture in the chair deteriorated rapidly, "Thank god, I have to pee."

Ed snorted, covering his mouth to hide the laugh, "You didn't have to wait."

"It would have been rude to get up in the middle," Winry hissed, dumping her shawl in the seat and hastily making her way to a curtain door for the suite, "where the hell is the washroom?"

Ed followed Winry's abrupt exit, leaving his jacket in the chair and snapping his vest straight as he ducked out, "I haven't a clue where it is… um," he pointed down the core of the hall, "down that way, probably."

Winry scowled as people began to file into the halls, "I'll find it… I'll be back."

Ed didn't get a chance to respond, he could only sigh and watch Winry walk away awkwardly.

A heavy hand fell onto Ed's left shoulder unannounced, startling him. Ed glanced back sharply to a man whose cocktail glass came to his mouth for an emphatic swallow. "So that's Winry now, huh?" the man asked.

Ed was a little hesitant to respond; the man's face was familiar, but Ed couldn't place him.

"Very nice," his hand patted down on Ed's shoulder again and the man cleared his throat, "My condolences about your father, Edward, he was a good man. I wasn't in town when his funeral was held, so I'm sorry I couldn't attend."

Ed gave a nod to the statement, "Thank you. And don't worry about it." Obviously it was someone who his dad had known well enough to discuss Winry as well. Ed bit his tongue on the blunt 'and you are?' and went with something a little easier on the ears, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Alfred," the man offered a handshake and quickly switched to his left when Ed only had that to offer, "Alfred Rosenberg. I've known your father since he joined the Thule Society."

Oh, now he made more sense.

"When are you stepping in for your father?" the man mused over another taste of his drink.

"I'm not," Ed gave the irrefutable response, "not my thing," was the safest qualification he could give.

The man made some kind of unintelligible noise to dismiss Edward's brush-off, "Perhaps not the society, but the _party, _now it used to not be most people's thing… and look at how things have blossomed under Adolf! It's fantastic. Efforts all over the map are paying off. We're expanding throughout the country." Alfred flicked his wrist and sharply swirled his drink, "You'd fill in quite well I think."

Really, Ed should have seen this conversation coming a mile away – of course they would try and recruit him, he'd been foolish to think he could escape it. At no point did Ed ever _like _making his physical scars an issue for himself, but this would be one of the few times he would pull the disability card, "I thought you people didn't care too much for this sort of thing," Ed gave a pat to his hallow right shoulder.

"Well…" Alfred rolled his eyes lazily and took another sip of his drink, "you're not Jewish, at least. Fucking Jews control Britain, France and the Soviet Empire – we don't want them to have any say in our system. We're surrounded by this bullshit Edward, so we'll keep civilized young men like yourself around."

In one blurb not only had Alfred Rosenberg managed to completely dispose of Edward's interest in holding a conversation with him, but he also fermented how badly – and how quickly – Ed wanted to get the measurements of the Thule Hall together and leave. That would be a task for early in the week, when everyone had school and work to be obligated to.

Ed begrudgingly relented to the fact he was really in the wrong company to disagree with this way of thinking, "I'll consider it."

"Good idea," the man's heavy hand patted down on Ed's shoulder once more and Alfred sauntered away as he called back, "enjoy your evening and we'll talk more later."

That was enough of that! Ed tucked himself away against a wall and out of people's way as they mulled around the courtesy bar. Edward stood back and watched while the upper class occupying the balcony area laughed hotly among themselves, indulged in their smug prattle, and slowly filtered back into their seats as the intermission wound down. By the time the lights dimmed again, Ed still stood alone in the back hall, a cocktail glass having appeared in his hand at _some _point during the break, and he'd already finished half of it by the time he'd realized it was there. The orchestra struck up again with a low murmur, then a brash thunder, and the sound ran through the auditorium, into ears, through the back halls, and into every channel the sound could travel. Ed glanced around in the sound, looking for Winry, but she was nowhere to be seen. Shuffling a little deeper into the hall, Ed took a swallow from his drinking glass and looked curiously up and down the hall. Movement in the far end of the hall caught Ed's attention, but as his focus narrowed in on the figure it disappeared into another suite. Ed sighed and looked down the core hall again.

Winry made her way down the centre of the hallway looking painfully annoyed, resettling the dress straps on her shoulders and adjusting the way the green frock wrapped tightly around her hips. The lower skirt was lively enough that it hid how hard she fought through each step on the pinpoint heels of her shoes. Ed took a generous 'sip' of his drink as Winry cursed the fabric monstrosity into submission while she walked. The rim of the cocktail glass woven through Edward's fingers sat lightly on his lower lip as he watched Winry approach, the ends of her skirt flying around below her knees, her arms swinging with the rhythm of each step, and the core of the silk dress lightly bouncing with every stride she made.

The long walk took Winry right up to the tip of Edward's polished shoes. She narrowed an eye at the blank stare she was getting from him, "What?"

Ed breathed and choked on the drink he hadn't swallowed – holy christ did alcohol ever burn. _Ow. _"…What_-_**_what_**_?_" he managed to sputter through a fit of coughs and watering eyes.

Winry snatched the glass out of Ed's hand and helped herself to the rest of it, promptly plunking the empty glass down on a nearby counter.

Ed gave his head a sharp shake and he roughly cleared his throat, "What the hell took you so long?"

Winry gave a nasty glare for the question, "_You _try figuring out how to do up garters in a bathroom stall when you're wearing a long dress."

The penguin suit had stopped being so bad a long time ago and Winry just continued to reinforce that.

"Let's sit down. I want to spend as little time as possible standing in these shoes," Winry grumbled, waving her hands and turning away from Ed, walking towards the balcony curtain, "I can't wait to get out of this… _thing_ and hide it in the closet."

"Winry…" Ed sounded a little more exasperated than he'd intended, but his tolerance for people's intolerance was running thin.

Winry raised her hands as Ed followed to catch up, "Ed, I'm sorry, but this is uncomfortable. If I move the wrong way and the shoulders slip off, I'll be giving everyone a show. I don't know how fancy women wear things like this."

"Winry."

"I grew up in jeans and overalls and I haven't worn a pair of those in months! I sure haven't ever worn anything silk before. Those stories you read as a kid, where girls dress up as princess and become royalty for a night…"

"_Winry."_

The girl in the olive green silk dress bristled and spun on him, "_Stop_ calling my name. What?"

Edward Elric was poorly adept at acting his age in a number of situations. He was ill equipped to function socially in a few others. He also was aware of aspects of his disposition where he had the emotional maturity of a pubescent teenager. Ed had a number of times where he wished he had the social wherewithal to not let his mouth run away on him. There was a novel of indexes for moments in his life where he would have liked to have been able to act his age, fit his good clothes, and manage to convince his voice that it could function when he wanted it to.

Ed stood in front of Winry for a moment, the slit of his mouth opening, tongue holding onto something to be said. In the middle of a great charade Ed used his own hesitation to draw a fresh breath of air into his lungs, let his shoulders fall, and surprise himself by putting his act together in one calm breath.

"You look really nice tonight, Win."

The annoyance in Winry's face flushed away and her reaction went blank. Her eyes glanced around quickly in the darkened hall as the orchestra's music echoed from beyond the curtains hiding everyone else away. Winry looked down at the dress she wore and gave a few tugs to it, fixing how it hung over her, "… Yeah?"

Ed nodded, "Yeah, you do."

This whole world liked to tell Winry she was pretty and Ed wasn't sure that she accepted the complements – her standards and everyone else's were so different. Whatever picture Winry had of herself in that dress, whatever she was seeing in the mirror on a day-to-day basis, however she thought she was coming off, it wasn't what everyone else saw and it wasn't who Ed saw walk down the hall and steal his drink. Maybe it was something she should know. Maybe she should hear it from someone she'd believe.

"Oh…" Winry brushed her hands over the skirt of her dress, "thank you, you look nice like that too."

Wrapped in the dimmed building lights, with a subtle smile warmed by the low notes of the clarinet's solo, Ed found a few free fingers and led Winry by the hand silently back to the curtain of the auditorium balcony.

In some ass-backwards way Hess was right, Ed supposed; he wasn't always the best company and keeping Winry so close exposed her to all sorts of problems. She had a host of things that she could complain about, and so did Ed for that matter, but Winry never complained about the journey itself. For nearly every moment Winry had been here, Ed shared the walk with her through the unending feeling of being very far from home. Tonight – this blip in their life amongst the endless worry – maybe it was a little bit nice. Monday through Sunday was always part of the journey, so a little break to do something and be somewhere that completely expelled them from the doldrums of the norm was… _a little bit _nice.

* * *

**A/N:**

Sometimes I forget that the Ed in my story has had 5 additional years of life/maturity under his belt compared to all the other characters. Given the right alignment of factors (and possibly alcoholic help) he is capable of showing it once in a while.

Some of the folks who read this and also poke around on my DA account saw the sketches in my scrapbook that I doodled up while I was writing this. The final version of the section didn't quite turn out like the art… edits and thought process changes and whatnot. And I really wanted to do actual art for the chapter, but I've been caught up with doing BigBang art. Oh well :x

There were three important people in the beginnings of rocket science: Oberth, Goddard, and Tsiolkovsky (whom Hermann referred to).

I was 'raised' on FMA1, because of that when someone says 'human Al' my first image is always Al with grey eyes. When you qualify it as Manga or Brotherhood Al, then his eye colour changes to gold. I've given Dante Hohenheim's rotting body and Al his father's golden eyes, not because I've ever seen Al with grey eyes as being something that's 'wrong', but because I think 'what an incredible gift to get from the father he's always wanted and never had'. I wanted Al to get something from his dad from that event.


	38. The Crimson Charm Part 1

**Chapter XXXVIII – #89 – The Crimson Charm (Part 1)**

Winry stood in the middle of a disaster she'd made on the upper floor of the house amidst the dusty afternoon light that filtered into the house from beyond the windows. Sheets, towels, linens of all sorts, clothes – her entire wardrobe, clean and dirty – all of it was thrown everywhere.

Winry looked around the upper floor in a panic. _Where is it?_ It had to be somewhere. Winry gathered up as much of the disaster as she could into an armload and pitched it into Ed's bedroom, adding to what she'd already piled in there.

When a knock came at the house door Winry sighed and stormed down the stairs. The rule in place since the disastrous weekend was to keep the door closed to strangers – even the mail man – but Rudolf Hess was not 'a stranger' and Winry opened the door.

"Good afternoon," he gave a modest smile.

"Good afternoon," Winry let him in. University classes let out at three while Edward was out of work at four thirty, so it wasn't a surprise to see Hess show up before four that afternoon.

Stepping into the house, the guest tapped the snow off his boots, "How have you been?"

"Alright," she replied, wishing he would state his purpose and leave, "what can I do for you?"

Hess began unbuttoning his coat like he'd intended to stay for more than a moment, "I came by to see how you were doing and to find out how you enjoyed the concert."

Winry shrugged, "I'm good, concert was good… uh, yeah," she clapped her hands together at her stomach.

With a laugh, Hess stepped out of his boots, "You sound busy; may I help with anything?"

"Naw," Winry gave a wave of her hand, "I just have laundry upstairs that I need to get done."

"I can help with that," Hess made his way to the stairwell.

Despite Winry's attempt to intercept him, she still found herself stumbling backwards up the stairs as the intrusive man made his way to the second floor, "I don't really need help with the laundry, it was just what I had going on – don't worry about it." Her stomach sank a little when Winry could tell by the look in Hess' eye that he could see the mess in the hall, the avalanche of things falling out of Ed's bedroom door, and that her room had been stripped bare. She laughed sheepishly – could he just leave?

"I'll help you sort it?" Hess offered.

Winry wanted to either shrivel up or punch him for the nearly condescending smile he gave, "Why are you here? You didn't show up to help me do laundry… did you?"

Hess laughed, "No, I actually came by to talk to you about Edward."

"Oh yeah?" Winry turned to the fabric avalanche coming out of Ed's door, "what about him?"

Hess's brow rose with interest as he watched Winry grab up an armful from the floor, "I don't know anything about him really, even Hohenheim didn't talk much about his son or their past," the man 'oof'd when Winry shoved the pile into his arms – instructing him to 'hold this!' Hess stared blankly at the bundle, "I uh… just know they were reunited during the war while Edward was still a teenager, shortly after an air raid that took his arm and leg," the man's eyes widened as he saw the oncoming sheet fly towards him and cover his head, though it didn't deter him from talking, "you seem to know him well enough, I thought perhaps you could fill in some blanks."

Winry's hands came back to her hips and she admired the human fabric tower she was building; this gave her an excellent opportunity to shake out her things! She quickly searched her thoughts to make sure she had enough of their fictitious life story beyond the Gate in order before responding, "Yeah I heard that's what happened, but Ed's the one who should be talking about himself, not me." Winry threw a couple of skirts and a sweater over Hess's head.

"How proper of you," Hess's stifled voice came out from beneath the pile. He gave a thought to uncovering himself, but with a few more clothes and two pillow cases stacked on top of him, the man figured he may as well stay put, "I'm very interested about some things Winry. Edward has opened up around you in a way none of us have seen from him behave before. He was very withdrawn until recently, then you showed up and drew him out into the sun. I thought perhaps you would be our best insight to get him to open up a little more than he already has."

Winry snorted a laugh, making a few disgruntled faces at the man who wasn't able to see them, "I've known Ed since the day I was born, and he's a private person and I respect that. He's trying to deal with some really hard circumstances and I'm trying to support him while he does that," she added another few bits of clothing to Hess's tower, "ask Ed yourself and if he wants you to know, he'll tell you, otherwise it's none of your business."

For a few moments Winry regretted burying this man in a mountain of things, because she couldn't see if he was resigned, annoyed, or frustrated with her refusal to cough up information on Ed.

"I asked his father once, but Hohenheim was sly," Hess's words came out smooth, even with what he was buried under, "have you and Edward been involved at all?"

"Invol…?" it took a few seconds before Winry blanched at the question, "_no…_ absolutely not. Why would you even think that?"

Edward Elric had the good sense to walk through the door right then and there, ending Rudolf Hess's line of questioning and preventing the German's demise if he'd kept on talking.

"I'm home," Ed called into the house.

Winry's eyes widened in horror and she quickly shot her attention to the absolute disaster the upper floor was – how was she supposed to explain this? "… Y-you're early!" she cried out.

"Got out early," Ed's voice echoed in the stairwell.

Winry looked between the pile burying Hess, the disaster she'd filled Ed's room with, the vacancy her own room was, and the scattering of random things all throughout the floor. Her fingers danced around at her lower lip, "That's nice… um… help yourself to something in the fridge!" Winry scrambled over the pile she'd thrown inside Ed's doorway.

"I'm gonna change first," Ed hauled himself up the stairs heavily, feet thumping down on the steps tiredly.

Winry's hands ravaged through her hair with each step Ed took and she looked around his room frantically. Could she heave this all inside the room, shut the door, and deny him access? No. Could she get it in the closet? No. Under the bed? No. Crap. Winry scrambled out of the room and tumbled into the hall again, coming to a dead stop when she saw Ed standing with one foot on the upper landing, the other on the second step from the top, and a stunningly perplexed look on his face as he eyed the mountain burying Hess.

"… What the…?"

Winry giggled nervously, watching while Hess shed the sheets from his arms and discarded what had been thrown over his head. Winry's hands slapped down over her hips in resignation over the debacle.

"_What are you doing in my house?_" Ed's German question finally came out as he drew up to the top step, having to double take at the trail of things escaping his bedroom door.

"_I came to see how things were,_" Hess patted down his hair, "_seems things are domestic._"

"_Right… don't you have anything better to do? Other people to annoy?_" Ed gave the man a wary eye before sharply turning and gawking at the disaster his room had been turned into, "holy shit Winry, what have you DONE?"

Winry threw in a grumble as she folded her arms, "I've misplaced something and I'm trying to find it."

"By doing this to my room?" Ed's face twisted, though he backed off on his question when Winry's glare was an absolute 'yes' to the question, "… what'd you lose?"

Wrinkling her nose, Winry shuffled a little, picking up a few things from the pile that trailed out of Ed's room and tossing it back into hers; she felt like an absolute heel. "The doll you got me for Christmas," she mumbled, "I can't find it."

Hess's brow rose at Winry's admission, though his bemused question fell to Edward, "_You bought Winry a doll for Christmas?_"

Ed's annoyed and pointed finger flew out into Hess's face, "_Shut. Up._"

The older man grinned at the embarrassment Ed tried to hide behind a wretched scowl. Hess laced the buttons down the front of his coat and gave a nod to the two of them while his grin never wavered, "_I'll be on my way_."

"_Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out,_" Ed snarled.

Hess laughed at the quip and both Edward and Winry watched with similar frowns as the man disappeared into the lower floor of the house.

"Where'd you see it last?" Ed asked, taking the focus off of Hess.

"On my bed," Winry frowned, "it's always on my bed, unless it got caught in the laundry Saturday morning, because I don't remember moving it."

Ed shrugged, the steps he took pulled his shadow through the hallway into the afternoon light, "It'll turn up. Don't worry. We'll look for it after dinner," a strong hand landed on Winry's shoulder as the front door of the house slammed shut. The building fell silent for a moment in the wake of the sound, even the faint tick of the downstairs clock began to creep into their ears before Ed spoke again, "What the hell was Rudolf doing here?"

"Oh," Winry laughed a little as she shook her head, "he was poking his nose around about you; wanted to know if I had any juicy stories to tell about Edward Elric."

"Yeah?" a frown worsened into Ed's brow, hissing his disgust through his teeth, "that slimy bastard doesn't know how to back off. I'm gonna have to put my boot up his ass," Ed's hand tightened around Winry's shoulder and his voice picked up, "whatever. We're getting out of here, so he can waste all the time he likes."

"We are?" Winry raised her brow, attaching a non-verbal expression of 'finally?'

Golden eyes suddenly shuffled from side to side, "Yeah, well, I left work early feeling a little 'sick'… and I'm gonna still be sick tomorrow. We're going to grab the measurements of the Thule Hall during the day."

Winry nodded, very thankful they were finally on their way to getting that task over and done with, "Okay."

* * *

Izumi wished she had a wristwatch to keep track of time, because she'd lost track of how long they'd been at the Gate. She was certain they'd been at the Gate for some time greater than twelve hours, but less than twenty four… maybe… she had no way of telling. The teacher felt as though her internal clock had been shut down; Izumi hadn't felt hungry, sleepy, or tired and it was growing unsettling.

Giving a hefty sigh, Izumi resumed her pacing around the white nothingness of the Gate space, "Alright Aisa, all over again, how'd I manage to get us here? You haven't answered my questions at all."

"Your compensation factors were inadequate," was the same answer given every time – like a ritual game, "my Red Stone facilitation is more than what you compensated for."

The excuse was really getting old and Izumi was more than ready to beat an answer out of the woman… if the threat of who-knows-what happening didn't exist. Reaching over and strangling the woman to death wouldn't do her any good; Aisa was dead already.

"Maybe you should find a way to go home," Al moved up beside Izumi.

"Absolutely not," was her firm response.

Al sighed, "What good does it do anybody if you just stay here with me?"

That was a very good question, one that Izumi did not have anything beyond rhetoric to answer with, because she did not know _what good _she was doing there. But the thought of abandoning the boy to this space… that was unfathomable. She'd left a child behind here once and she didn't have the strength to do it again.

"Aisa!" Alphonse called out, "maybe if you tell my teacher what she did to get here, she'll go home! Can you tell her, please?"

"I have told her, would you like me to repeat myself again?" the continual disinterest Aisa had in answering the question ground down on both Al's and Izumi's nerves.

Al sighed, shuffling away from the teacher giving him a nasty look for the request he'd just made, "Look Aisa, I'm sure Dante told you not to tell anyone, but aren't you better serving Dante if you're with Dante? Shouldn't you want to tell us so my teacher will know what to do and then you can go home? I'm okay here, really."

The nurse's eyes shifted from Izumi to Alphonse and then back again, "It might be in Izumi's best interest to remain here with me. Dante's wrath when she finds out I've been used in this way will be unsettling."

"I like how I've already been sentenced for something I don't know anything about," Izumi scowled, lines zipping through her brow.

"Then you should tell her what happened!" Alphonse pleaded.

Aisa's words drawled out monaurally, "The compensation factors in her transmutation were inadequate…"

Alphonse threw his hands up as Aisa finished her spiel.

"Let it drop, Al," Izumi waved for him to come back to her, "even if she tells me, I'm not leaving."

With a determined look in his eye, Al continued to attempt some kind of conversation with Aisa, "Can you tell me how it works at least? Like the procurement process for the Red Stones inside of you?"

Aisa looked back at the youngest Elric brother, intrigued by the question, looking as though she'd begun thinking the question over and debating if it was a safe to answer or not. Izumi's brow rose curiously at the woman actually attempting to entertain one of their questions.

"Where do you store it?" Alphonse approached Aisa, "all the excess stones and things keeping you alive?"

"Those aren't things you need to know, Alphonse," Aisa finally answered.

The young alchemist frowned, starting to walk a wide circle around her, "Yeah, I'm sure it's some big secret you and Dante keep." Alphonse continued his circle around Aisa before coming to a stop in front of her again. His hands came down onto his moderate hips and Al gave her his most inquisitive frown, "and you really don't have a pulse, like Sensei says?"

Aisa shook her head, "My body is also room temperature, so it feels cool to the touch." With a shrug of her shoulders Aisa extended her right hand, "Go on."

A little burst of excitement pushed Al forwards. Though there was nothing about Aisa that was in any way _exciting, _this woman was still a fascinating 'something' that was different than all the things he'd learnt about the Gate. Now they were learning about what Dante could do, even if it was just little bits at a time.

Yet Alphonse Elric had no idea why the closer he came to Aisa, the more the leery sensation she gave him began to crystallize in his mind's eye. She was like an enigma hidden in a dense fog and the woman whose physical figure had not changed, morphed, or mutated in anyway somehow felt like she'd transformed into a monster of nightmares by the time Al was close enough to touch her. Alphonse froze before taking hold of her wrist, eyes wide, and heart racing for no reason he understood. He looked to Aisa like she should have been able to tell him what was wrong, yet all the nurse did was look back with moderate confusion to the boy's hesitation.

"Al?" Izumi called; a hint of concern in her voice.

Al glanced to his hand; poised to take hold of the wrist he'd been offered. A realization suddenly hit the young Elric – Aisa _terrified_ him.

"Is something wrong?" Aisa looked down to Alphonse, confusion in her voice.

Without another thought to his hesitation, Al moved quickly and pushed through the unidentifiable fear, his right hand taking hold of the nurse's extended wrist.

The Gate pulsed the moment the boy's warm fingers landed on her flesh.

Izumi staggered further back from the yawning doors as baby Diana – silent for the woman's entire tenure at the Gate – let out a torrential wail. The point of contact between Alphonse's grip and Aisa's wrist shot a deafening crackle into everyone's ears before exploding into wild red transmutation sparks, strings of power thrashing about madly and without control. Suddenly it was Alphonse joining the frenzied screams Diana made.

Izumi hadn't finished her dash towards Al before she began to stumble. The sudden syphoning of air into the uncontrolled transmutation flying around Aisa and Alphonse, and the power that blew out from the Gate because of it, made it almost impossible for the teacher to remain standing. The currents began to blow past Izumi with raging force, the pressure of the air growing exponentially, and the fear in Izumi's stomach sickened when two large, wide opened eyes appeared within the voided black space of the Gate. The pupils cast a rancid, raging gaze over the doorstep visitors, pounding down on Izumi through to her core. The teacher broke herself free from the terrorizing glare and scrambled to take hold of Alphonse as he screamed, nearly unable to keep standing as she grabbed him. Izumi wrapped her arm around the frantic boy's neck, looking over her shoulder to Aisa amidst the disaster. The woman had fallen pale, her eyes had rolled back, and she was completely unresponsive to everything Izumi yelled. The teacher tried again and again to break the hold Alphonse had taken on her wrist, each time being burned by the sparks of the alchemical reaction.

Pulling Alphonse into her body, Izumi's teeth clenched while the ends of her hair were flung madly around her head, still watching the open doors as the eyes of the Gate began to grow unruly, sending Diana into a frenzy. Again the teacher tried to pry Alphonse away and all Izumi could do was watch while the boy's fingers begin to literally sink into the flesh of Aisa's wrist. With a desperate burst of energy, Izumi's right arm flew above her head, her left knee came up to her chest and, with all her body weight, Izumi slammed her elbow down on the sparking connection point between Alphonse and Aisa. The woman had put her knee into the young Elric's chest while she'd moved and Alphonse was thrust away as the connection was finally severed.

Al hit the surface with a shrill cry and Izumi fell to the ground with Aisa at her back. The chaos their connection brought forth from the Gate wasn't quelled by the separation – the winds still raged and the air remained thick, but the cascading transmutation ceased and Alphonse fell silent. Izumi scrambled through the raging alchemical winds towards him.

"AL!" Izumi's hand landed on the boy's chest. Her fingers gripped into the front of his shirt and she rattled him, "ALPHONSE!" The woman's hand gave a sharp slap across his face when he didn't respond, hoping for some reaction and receiving nothing in return.

A pained cry leaked out from Aisa's lungs and the woman came to her hands and knees, cradling the wrist Alphonse's fingers had damaged, "We need to go!"

"What have you done to him?" Izumi's panic swung around and she flared her rage amidst the torrents of the Gate.

Aisa slowly drew to her feet, "He reacted to me! We need to leave - now!"

Izumi's eyes shot between the non-responsive child and the woman with asinine claims, "He _reacted _to you?"

"YES," Aisa hollered, looking up at the raging Gate. Her jaw moved, but her voice struggled to follow, "You have to clap your hands and get us out of here, or when the Gate breaks down Diana it will pull us all through!"

Izumi took a few swallows of the maddening winds attempting to rip the white coat from her body. Izumi's jaw slipped open as her hands gripped Al's shoulders, "WHY?"

"I wouldn't have let him touch me if I knew why!" Aisa's response was loud and shrill, "Dante always claps her hands to return from the Gate, you should be able to do the same. I am the catalyst, so when I'm gone the reaction should end and this will all stop."

Izumi's eyes flew around the erupting space at the Gate amidst winds and power blowing so wildly past her the currents could be seen. She looked at the raging set of eyes trapped at the Gate staring back on them with more than hunger in its stare.

"HURRY!"

Izumi's hands gripped the soft cheeks of the unresponsive Elric and the teacher took a deep breath.

"It's not Dante's wrath people will fear if you don't come out of this alright."

Izumi clapped her hands.

* * *

Ed was up nearly as early as he would have been for work, waiting for the world to be buried in mundane life before he and Winry ducked out of the house and headed to the Thule Hall. The day was nice enough for it; it was only a few degrees below zero, the sky was clear, the sun was strong, and the day was bright. Ed was thankful that meant the Thule Hall would be well lit for their measurement task.

The pair had arrived at the hall before nine and both of them figured that the cold winter weather in the days and weeks prior had been drawn into the underground realm, because the wide room and all its stone was bitterly cold – even with the sun shining in.

Both shivered a little as they entered the sunlit hall, looking around at a place that they'd last seen when it had been covered in spilt blood. Ed and Winry centred themselves in the room, neither saying a thing, no one setting their bags down, nobody's voice offering to take the lead – they only stood on the sunlit centre; the place where Hohenheim had died. Winry pried her eyes off of the three doors in the far reaches of the hall; once upon a time, when her adventure began, she'd come out from behind one of them and she couldn't remember which. Winry glanced to Ed whose expression had locked down firmly. Her free hand snuck out to find his, to see if he could be unlocked, but Edward moved away before she could try.

Ed knelt down and put his bare hand on the cold stone surface of the Thule Hall floor, his left index finger slipping into the carved grooves and he explored the etching. Ed balanced on his knees as Winry finally set their bags down on the sigil, sending a light wave through the still and frigid air. Sliding along the ground, Ed's fingers continued to feel their way along the depth of the transmutation circle's grooves before he finally sat back and looked up at Winry.

"Can you feel that?" it sounded more like a statement of fact that she should feel something rather than a question.

Winry shook her head, "Feel what?"

Ed mulled her response over, "Must be an alchemist's thing, but it's… like static," he explained, rising to his feet again, "it's transmutation energy and it's really faint. I've felt it before when I was here… Dad said it was caused by the Gate doors being open back home – the transmutation circle is recognizing a source of power."

Winry's eyes narrowed at the statement, "I thought you said this thing didn't work? No alchemy and all."

Ed nodded in agreement that the transmutation circle didn't work, but "Alchemy is possible here, it's just our bonds aren't connected and the power flow only goes one way; that's what makes it impossible," his hand slipped into his pocket and Ed took a few slow steps over the surface of the sigil, "think of a transmutation circle like a mediator between the alchemist and his power source for altering matter. The circle establishes the power source so it can relay the energy to the alchemist for a transmutation, from there it's up to the alchemist to control it and transmute things with it," golden eyes slowly drifted upwards, looking into the high, stain glass dome above their heads, "and Dante's got the Gate doors open right now, that's how it's sending us feedback – the transmutation circle is reaching for the Gate, recognizing the power source," Ed's hand reached up, curling his fingers and clawing the air, "the circle is clawing to get a power source because it's designed not to mediate the energy properly and ultimately rebound, but since the power flow is only one way, it doesn't actually draw power, but we can feel the residue energy from the futile effort."

Winry looked at the ground beneath her feet warily, "It's not gonna like, come alive and bite me cause Dante's there, is it?"

"No," Ed laughed. He took a slow glance around the stone fringes of the room, following the lines of the pillars up to the roofing, through the dome, and beyond the windows to the sky, before pulling himself down again. Edward's gaze landed on the circle they stood on and his eyes cut grooves deep into the fissures already carved. His brow knotted, "Wonder if I could get a message to go through…"

"To _Dante?_" Winry squeaked.

Ed shook his head quickly, "Not to Dante specifically," his feet suddenly moved along the floor, the cold soles of his boots clapping off the cement with each step. It wasn't a measuring tape or written formula being used to plot the floor piece Ed walked on, it was the lengths of his steps and the speed at which he took them that helped Ed's thought process map itself out as he moved sharply around the transmutation circle carved into the stone, "I wonder if I could send a message through with the open doors like this," the faint echo of his feet came to a stop and the eldest Elric squared himself off in a section of the circle, "get it to ride on the transmutation circle's draw to the Gate, and power it with the residue."

Epiphanies were sometimes like the moment a child realizes the power of their accomplishment to stand on their own for the first time; it was always a bright, wondrous, and proud feeling.

"Could I use the feedback energy to piggyback a signal along the draw to the Gate and send a message home?" The fascinating idea tumbled through Ed's thoughts wildly.

"What kind of message would you send?" Winry tilted her head thoughtfully, looking around the room as Ed had done, looking up to the same sky he'd questioned, and then looking over to him as his mental gears began to run faster, "S.O.S.?" Winry offered her own answer with a smile.

The response brought a laugh out of Ed, a sound that echoed lightly off of the frigid stone walls. Ed wandered over to the belongings Winry had placed down on the circle, rummaging through a bag until he found the package of white chalk sticks. Though the chalk sticks were for marking their measurements, it had been a long time since a stick of chalk had been in Ed's hand for any purpose. He stared at it for a few moments, rotating it around in his fingers.

As he looked up, stern, thoughtful Elric eyes cut through the room sharply, expertly picking out his most crucial points, stopping when the gaze hit the apex of his mental map on the floor. With a few steps to meet the target, Ed came down to his knees, "If I drew the transmutation circle here… literally overlaying it on the Thule's circle…" the white chalk stick snapped properly into his grasp and the beginnings of a white insignia from his youth was drawn over the stone – never skipping over the carved lines of the Thule Hall sigil, always digging into the groves of the floor, making sure his circle never broke form or lost shape, "get a message to the Gate without actually activating the master rebound transmutation."

As the final stroke of Edward's chalk lifted from the ground, Winry knelt down beside him, eyes looking over the transmutation circle he'd adopted as a child. She asked him again, "What kind of message can you send?"

"I can't," it was a surprisingly abrupt answer from Edward, given how seriously he'd taken his task of plotting the circle he'd just drawn, "I don't know what I'd use to trigger it to go through, but if I _could_, I'd do it with this."

Edward had plotted, orchestrated, and drawn the whole thing out – a message home that he'd known had no chance of being delivered to anyone, since he had no trigger to start it. Yet, Ed let himself live out the experience of wrangling out a successful and complicated double-layered transmutation that he _could _have done if his circumstances had been different. Winry looked at the accomplishment drawn on the floor, her heart sinking as she realized it had no more value to either of them than a piece of a child's sidewalk chalk art.

Ed glanced at the white stick in his hand, then at the transmutation circle he'd drawn; he'd nearly tucked the stick away and stood up to get to work, but Winry stopped him. Ed's gaze turned to her as Winry's hand came down on his shoulder and her eyes on the floor.

"If you _could _have sent a message, what would you have sent?"

Ed paused, glancing to his work while trying to figure out an answer, "It wouldn't be a normal message. It wouldn't advertise that we're here… it'd be more like a knock on a door, or a gust of wind that I'd made to blow a window shut, or something like that," the chalk stick was turned over in Edward's hand and finally slipped back into his pocket, "if I could make it work, I don't know how anyone would know it was me," golden eyes fixated on the stubborn, uncooperative floor, "It'd still be a message home though… I'd send something home."

Winry pushed to her feet, deliberately bumping into his arm as she rose, trying to draw his attention out of the impotence of the world they were in, "Let's get to work. You don't want Dante knowing you're knocking on the door anyways. Better this world be in your hands than available to hers."

He glanced up as Winry straightened herself and smoothed out her coat, grinning down to Ed and extending a hand to help bring him to his feet. He took the offering and stood up, questioning whether or not he would give up part of this world to Dante if the exchange meant they'd get home.

* * *

The east was almost secured. Everyone under Brigadier General Mustang understood that the east was a triumph to secure, but it was going to be the north and northwest that would be the most challenging – the upper class existed there, and the upper class supported the government that pampered their cozy lives. It was hard for Mustang to get a feel for the mood of that district; however, that was a bridge they'd all cross at a later date. Right now the vast majority of the population in Central City was in the streets – they continued their protests over anything and everything they could think of, growing angrier with each passing day that the government refused to acknowledge their presence, let alone their cries. Mustang watched the uproar, a few of his closer men ribbing the officer for the growing number of people in the streets calling out their support for him, before Mustang moved himself up a floor to a mostly emptied office in their building and gave himself a few moments of peace at a window.

"Bradley told me I'd never get support if I attempted a coup…" Mustang's thoughts were spoken aloud.

"When it's those in charge of Central who shoot innocent people in the streets, common sense emerges," Hawkeye joined her superior officer at the window.

Roy's brow rose, "You think this has anything to do with common sense?" he glanced to Riza, "common sense would have the government stepping down and my name on an election ballot."

"Common sense tells people who will protect them and who will not," Riza withheld her grin, even if it did shine through a touch, "if you look out for people in their darkest hours, they'll know who to turn to when it's light."

Roy's expression loosened and he gave a twisted grin to Riza, "That was incredibly profound, Major."

"It was a line from the book I read last night," she responded promptly, snapping up a file folder thick with papers, "reports for our stance in the northern portions of Central, sir."

Taking the file folder from his officer, Mustang turned his nose up at the paperwork and dropped it on the floor, "I'll deal with that when the east is entirely secured. I won't get ahead of myself."

Before Riza could at least tell her superior officer to pick up the file from the floor and put it somewhere safe, both officers were sent stumbling off their feet, falling to the side – a portion of the far exterior wall suddenly blew in with an explosive bang, throwing debris through the room and sinking the occupants beneath a thick grey cloud of dust. Hawkeye's gun was drawn and Mustang's glove was on before either of them had gathered their bearings.

A shrill scream raged through the room, neither officer able to see what was coming but clearly able to hear it charge. From the floor, Hawkeye fired four bullets towards the sound in the smoke, at least one connecting if the screaming animal's sound was any indication. The noise grew wild again and the major scrambled to get up off her backside, only to be blindsided by Mustang – his arm reaching around the back of her shoulders and throwing her face first to the floor.

"GET DOWN," he curled to the floor with her, right hand snapping out and igniting the dust cloud. As quickly as the dust had burst into flames, it vanished – burning off almost instantly.

Both officers looked up from the floor, rising up to their knees, Hawkeye's sidearm readied and Mustang's fingers poised. Slowly they stood, the midday sun leaking in from not only the windows but the gaping hole in the wall as well. They looked around the singed room sharply, trying to find what had attacked them.

"That hurt…"

Mustang and Hawkeye snapped their focus to the voice, brows rising as they looked at Wrath standing in the middle of the room, a little burnt from the momentary fire and poking at the wound on his chest.

"… Wrath?" Mustang asked carefully – the last time he'd seen the homunculus it wasn't in this state.

The wild violet eyes of the homunculus looked between the two officers, focus landing on Hawkeye and the gun she'd shot him with. Wrath rolled his AutoMail shoulder and moved like he'd planned to run the woman down. Hawkeye's weapon locked on and Mustang's fire was ready, but before Wrath could make his first move he was blindsided by a body that struck him, sending him flying into the far wall. The officer's defences lowered quickly as Izumi landed on the floor and dropped to her knees, hand to her mouth.

"Mrs. Curtis?" Mustang stepped forward in alarm.

Izumi's forehead hit the floor and blood from the woman's mouth spilled through her hands.

"I told you to leave me alone!" the homunculus screamed, retreating from a barrage of bullets shot at him from Hawkeye's gun. Before anyone could act on Wrath further, the creature gave a disgusted look to them all and broke out of the room through a far window.

"Get a doctor!" Mustang ordered, crouching down next to Izumi as Hawkeye rushed by.

"Don't bother!" Izumi coughed out the response, breathing heavily as she held herself hunched over, "it'll pass."

"Are you okay?" Hawkeye turned back, sweeping a collection of napkins off a desk and bringing them down to Izumi who'd begun to straighten up.

"I'll be fine," the teacher wiped her hands and face down with the napkins, "it's normal, it'll pass."

"This is normal?" there was no way in the world Mustang would believe that. The officer's good eye looked Izumi over, attention veering from the blood she'd coughed up on the floor, to the burns down her sleeveless right arm, "what happened to you?"

"Doesn't matter," Izumi's eyes glanced to the white gloved hand that grabbed her shoulder.

"Where's Alphonse?" Mustang demanded.

The teacher's hands came up and rubbed her face down, "Out of reach for the moment."

"What is that supposed to mean?" the impatient question escaped Mustang.

"Don't get your panties in a knot," A very bitter and disgruntled tone echoed in Izumi's words. Quickly and without warning she snatched Mustang's hand from her shoulder, firmly holding him at his wrist, "This pyro-mitten you've got? If you get anywhere near the heart of Central and find Aisa, don't start using this, it won't end well."

Mustang's good eye narrowed, taking back his hand, "Why?"

"There's a damaged building and a lot of broken windows that explains why," Izumi's eyes narrowed back at him.

That certainly confirmed that it was Izumi who had fallen out the window with Aisa. Mustang's shoulders fell as he looked to the hole in the building Wrath had created. The officer's ears perked when the clap of Izumi's hands was heard and he watched as the hole in the wall was repaired. Mustang ran his hand through his hair, rising to his feet, "We were discussing that Aisa might have been used in Red Water experiments and been used to crystallize red stones."

"Yup," Izumi didn't even bother padding the truth as she stood up, "and not just that…" the teacher's words vanished suddenly while she pushed her hair off her shoulders and let it fall down her back. Examining her thoughts, Izumi's eyes snapped through the room, "I picked up something about Dante trying to bring Ed home."

Both officers couldn't help but find Dante's actions suspicious and Hawkeye stepped into the conversation, "What motive would she have for bringing Edward home? I thought she wanted to obtain knowledge from beyond the Gate?"

A thoughtful hum spun through the room as Mustang mulled the concept over, "Ed buries himself in books and texts. If the world he's in – the world that Dante wants – has knowledge on alchemy that we don't, he'd seek it out," the officer nodded to himself slowly, swallowing the terrifying idea of just _how much _knowledge Ed would come home with, if they could get him, "he could have a dangerous amount of knowledge if he was brought home," a very bizarre thought struck Mustang that he spoke aloud, "Edward himself could be dangerous."

"He certainly wouldn't tell Dante what he'd learnt," Riza shook her head, finally re-holstering he sidearm, "he'd know better than anyone the power of the alchemy he'd learnt beyond the Gate."

A light pop echoed in the room as Izumi's lips parted. Her hand came to her chin, her eyes moved between the two officers, and a very solemn voice emerged, "Dante seems to have been working on a trick with human transmutation," she watched the seriousness darken the two officers eyes, "one that works like behaviour modification; like brainwashing. I watched how a seven-year-old controlled the thoughts and behaviour of a room full of adult men… and that's incredibly hard to do."

Mustang's arms folded as silence settled onto the room; human transmutation required the transmutation of the mind, body, and soul. Though all three elements were unfathomably hard to transmute, transmutation of flesh qualified as the easiest, transmutation of a soul appeared to fall second if all the examples of extracted souls attached to armour or other people were any clue, but transmutation of an active mind? He couldn't imagine even attempting that… and perfecting it to a science where it could be manipulated? A person would end up as a vegetable if there was even the slightest misstep.

"Look," Izumi finally snarled, "I got out of the underground city by the skin of my teeth a few hours ago and came up to find myself face to face with Wrath. I don't have time to stick around and entertain you - Wrath's hopped up on red stones and I need to stay on him before he kills someone."

"No, wait," Mustang ordered an end to Izumi's pursuit, "you don't just burst in through my wall—"

"This isn't your wall."

"—and puke blood all over _MY_ floor—"

"That is _none _of your business," Izumi barked.

"—chasing some rogue homunculus," Mustang's voice began to boil, "after running away with Alphonse Elric, then coming back without him, and expect me to think that is _just _fine —"

"Yeah, I do!"

"I want an explanation!"

Hawkeye raised a finger, "Excuse me."

Both sets of narrow eyes snapped to the third person in the room.

Hawkeye's gaze shifted between the two of them abruptly for a few moments before she finally cleared her throat, "Havoc's team is out that way," she motioned to the escape route their little terror had taken, "Wrath is hard to miss because he draws so much attention to himself, so I'm sure he caught the lieutenant's eye. Our men can keep watch over him, I think Ms Curtis needs a breather…" again the major glanced between the two of them as things seemed to deflate, "when was the last time any of us had something to eat?"

That was a longer time than Izumi could count if she included all her time at the Gate. The woman's lungs emptied, her head hanging with the sigh as her hand slapped over her forehead, "Fine."

"And we'll get that looked after," Mustang grumbled his statement.

The teacher gave a flat stare to the officer, "What looked after?"

One finger at a time, the Brigadier General began to remove his white glove, "You think _I _don't know what an alchemical burn looks like?" he made a gesture to the burns and sores marring Izumi's right arm, "that needs to be looked after."

Izumi flipped her focus from the wounded arm to the man whose hands sunk firmly into his pockets. She snorted and shook her head, "You went from bitching me out to offering aid pretty fast."

Mustang shrugged – the longer he kept Izumi around, the better chance he had of getting answers, "I'm a really a nice guy."

The alchemy teacher frowned, rolling her shoulders and gingerly rubbing the sore arm, "Do you say that to all the girls?"

"Yup."

Izumi rolled her eyes, "I'll remember to tell my husband to kick your ass."

* * *

Ed put his cheek down onto the cold stone floor and his eyes again scanned the level of the floor – was it flat from this angle? Did it slope? Did it have hills? Did it dip in the centre? If water were spilt on the floor, which direction would it drain? It could have all been important.

By this point in their day, Edward and Winry had mapped out the transmutation circle and the Thule Hall down to the depth of the grooves dug into the stone.

Ed shook his head to finish off a conversation that had been going on for some time, "Naw, I only opened a Russian dictionary so I could try and read Tsiolkovsky's work."

"But you never went?" Winry flipped her pencil and took an eraser to her sheet.

"Hell no," he wrinkled his nose at the suggestion, "after the Romanovs were killed, that country had more issues than Germany… didn't need to deal with that."

Winry took a few steps forward, opening her mouth to speak, but her words, motions, and actions suddenly froze like her world had been paused. Edward watched her stop and chilled over as well. Neither spoke, neither moved – both of them listening… hearing the sound of the hall's ground-level entry door creak and crack open. A rush of winter air flooded down the stairwell and blew into the hall; neither body moved nor breathed. They both waited with pounding hearts, listening for a footstep or a voice.

The ground level door slammed shut.

Ed burst to his feet, sweeping his spreads of notes into the shoulder bag they'd brought, Winry doing the same. The sound of footsteps from the intruder made their way down slowly, casually, and uninterested. In a flurry motion, the bag was thrown over his shoulder and Ed rushed to grab Winry as she tossed her notepad and loose sheets into her own shoulder bag. With a yank on her arm, Ed brought her to the edge of the transmutation circle closest to the exit and they turned to face the wretched symbol – their backs to the hall entrance.

They had not wanted to be interrupted; Ed was hoping to high hell that they would not get interrupted. He was so close to getting this finished, why couldn't he have had another thirty minutes of peace? At least there was a plan to deal with this and Ed took a deep breath. Winry glanced nervously to him and they stood, facing the centre of the room, waiting for the visitor to arrive.

Footsteps slowed and echoed clearly as the final few steps into the lower floor came to pass. Ed turned over his shoulder casually, watching as the moving feet and legs belonging to the footsteps came into view.

"Hello?" Ed called out in German.

"Good afternoon," was the German answer. Like he'd ducked under a curtain, Rudolf Hess dipped his head as he slipped into the light falling in from overhead, "what in the world are you doing here, Edward?"

Of all the people Ed had not wanted to encounter – he could see the subtle insert of Nazi propaganda coming from miles away and Edward had pretty much had enough of it. Despite that, Ed's response was deliberately slow and casual, "Winry and I came by to pay some respects," he answered.

Hess gave Ed an odd glance for his answer, "That's surprising. I didn't think you were the type."

"It was Winry's idea."

"Ah," the visitor nodded and the answer became acceptable. Hess moved forwards, coming to stand next to Winry's open side and he looked down at the girl hopelessly lost in the German conversation. When she didn't even acknowledge his presence, Hess reached out and swept away the hair that framed her face, ringing a finger around Winry's ear and tucking her hair behind it. He mused over the frown she gave him and the appearance of Ed's hand firmly on her shoulder.

"How'd you two get in?" he asked.

"I still have dad's keys," Ed glanced down to his pocket, "What are you doing here? Aren't classes in until three or something?"

The man gave a nod, "I normally have class until three, yes…" Hess took a hefty breath and gave a forceful sigh, "but I've been out since my first class finished; business and things to tend to. It's been a long and boring day."

Any fledgling thought Ed had about dotting the Is and crossing his Ts on the Thule Hall map was erased – Hess would probably be here for a while. Ed mentally filed away their day's task and decided it was time to leave.

"What's that?" Hess raised an eyebrow at the white markings drawn on the floor.

Ed looked at the transmutation circle he'd drawn with white chalk and his thoughts seized up on him. He'd completely glazed over his circle even being there and suddenly found himself floundering for an excuse, "I… Dad enjoyed alchemy…" Ed began, "that was something I learnt from one of his books when I was a kid. Kind of a uh…" Ed's mouth went dry. _Shit._

Hess saved Ed from his failed recovery, laughing and shooting him a grin, "I learn something new about you each time we meet. You're far more sentimental than I'd pictured you, Edward."

"Yeah…" Ed glanced away; sure, whatever satisfied Hess was fine with him, "Um, I'll find a broom or something to clean that up. Sorry."

"No, don't worry about it," Hess waved his hand dismissively, "I haven't done anything all day, I can take care of it for you."

Ed brow rose at the statement, "Thought you'd been dealing with business all day?"

"I have," Hess nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets, "I've been upstairs all day… waiting for whenever you decided to come up."

The room somehow managed to turn white to Edward's eyes, and all he reacted with was a lengthy blank stare, the darkly dressed silhouette carving into his mind amidst the bleached imagery. Ed had never experienced a more simply spoken statement that had turned the dynamics of his heartbeat, lungs, and stomach inside out so quickly.

"So it seems you've spent quite some time paying your respects," the words came out as smooth as running water, "it makes me wonder what you were actually doing."

There weren't too many times in his life where Ed had wanted to completely abandon an engagement and run, but this was one of them. Rudolf Hess unnerved Ed in a way Adolf Hitler could not – Hitler was proud, controlling, abrupt, and abrasive; when Hess wanted to be, he was powerful, stern, cold and calculating. Ed had _seen_ this man kill without the slightest flinch more than once.

"Why the hell have you been waiting for me? How'd you know I was even here?"

"We've been observing you since your father died."

Ed swallowed the answer slowly. His arm secured around Winry's shoulder and Ed slowly pulled her away, "What for?"

"Curiosity," the man gave a shrug. Hess turned away from where Ed and Winry stood, slowly walking along the precipice of the light within the hall. His hands sat in his pockets, posture casual, interest in them appearing aloof. Each step he took through the hall sent ripples through the air, "I've been told you've been here since quarter to nine, what have you been doing?"

A hesitant pause came through in Ed's voice, "You've been observing us…" something snapped in the back of Edward's mind at a sickening realization and Ed's left arm unlatched from Winry as he took a step forward, his pointed finger flailing about. "You knew who attacked us… you've known all along! You fucking asshole, you've known who's attacked us the whole goddamn time and you played me at the Haushofers!" The ire in Ed's voice rose and the calm conversation came to an end, "Were the Haushofers in on it too? Were you all in on this for shits and giggles to see how I'd take it?"

"No, the Haushofers don't know," Hess shook his head, his words remaining flat and stoic in behind Edward's rancid outbursts, "but I am glad they listened to me when I suggested they retrieve you for your birthday and I'm glad you stayed with them when it was suggested, because your alchemy materials were catalogued over the nights you stayed," the man gave a moment of silence, deliberately allowing Edward's raging storm to flare; the look in the older Elric brother's gaze was incorrigible.

The daylight from above crashing in heavily from overhead as Hess's hand slipped behind the front fold of his jacket and produced the thick, leather bound book Hohenheim had written out for the Theory Beyond the Gate.

"Everything your father and you kept in that house, tucked away in shelves, shovelled into drawers or hidden under the couch was all carefully documented. I had this collected while you've been out today and I've been reading it while I've waited. But, for everything else, we did our best to be as unnoticeable in the house as possible. If we did leave anything slightly astray, you had been too out of sorts at the time to notice," from behind sealed lips, the man's tongue ran along his teeth, watching how the presentation of the book unnerved Edward further. Hess' footsteps came to a stop and he looked pointedly at the pair, "In fact, you had so much information I needed to send you away to that concert because there were a few things we wanted to double check." The book was rattled in Hess's hand.

The chilled air of the underground domain surged through Edward's lungs; if he had two good hands to rip this man to shreds with… "You people had no right to go through our house!"

"You have no right to that house," Hess's words continued to be firm and unwavering, "You have no rights in this land what so ever. You aren't German, you aren't even British, you are nothing to this world," there was finally a show of interest and a spark of life in Hess's words, and with weak joviality, he nearly smiled at Ed, "You are something called the FullMetal

Alchemist, who has no right and no claim to anything in this world."

What Edward Elric wouldn't have given to be able to burst at the seams and show this other-world man exactly what it meant to be the FullMetal Alchemist, because he obviously did not understand.

"You are a liar, a snake, a magician, and above all else: you are a sinner. As I have come to understand it, you have committed acts so astoundingly vile that I can't even begin to fathom what punishment still awaits you," Hess's words rolled off his tongue with a touch of revolt, "and this 'manuscript' further exemplifies the depths of your family's greedy, sinful desires."

The longer Hess spoke, the more Edward became aware that the amount of danger being forced down his throat was unfathomable. His heart thundered in his chest; they needed to leave – now.

In one quick sweep of his arm, Ed secured Winry's hand and began a hasty march away from the circle, out of the sunlit hall and towards the blackened exit; even the thought of attempting to retrieve his father's book from Hess wasn't entertained. Staying in the hall, with those kinds of words flying around, couldn't possibly be worth it, "I'll save you the effort of kicking us out."

Edward's eyes looked ahead to the darkened stairwell that even the sunlight couldn't reach. As his footsteps stormed along the cold floor, the dark shadows hiding in the stairwell moved. Ed's grip around Winry's hand tightened and his next steps retreated backwards; watching as the darkest points of the shadows swayed and rose, breathing like they wanted to be human. The darkness developed slow footsteps that echoed with strength and echoed with a voice that spoke with crass hate and malicious amusement, "Before you encounter the company we have waiting for the two of you upstairs, could you tell us about the FullMetal Alchemist… in your own words?"

Ed took another step back into the room, securing Winry behind himself, watching Adolf emerge from behind his dark veil in the stairwell, "He's retired."

Hess began a slowly paced circle around the outer most portions of the room, his footsteps clapping down like the powerful pendulum in a grandfather clock.

"A simple answer," Adolf nodded, sweeping each step he made towards them emphatically, "Now, would you recount for us the circumstances that you've shared to everyone here in Germany, and 'home' in London, regarding the cost of your arm and leg? So we may all hear it in your own words."

"I…" Ed's voice vanished as he stared horrified at the very first lie he'd had to take on to exist beyond the Gate. He saw the cataclysm coming and had no idea how to free himself from it, because Envy had undoubtedly told Adolf the truth. His grip on Winry's hand tightened, "You asshole."

Adolf's voice exploded, bursting like he carried the power to blow the stone walls out of the earth, "You lost them attempting to resurrect your family and you failed! You defied God: you attempted to take something from him that was no longer yours. You were greedy and selfish; a stupid child. While you served your ultimate punishment here, to hide all those perverse sins you had the nerve to tell any and every ear that would listen that you lost them in an air raid – a German air raid on the streets of London!" the man's arms flew out to his side, each movement of his body and point of his fingers emphasized by a snap in his body, "You _dared _to place blame on Germany to hide your true filth? God punished you and now you tell people that you are not at fault? You have people believe that we Germans are at fault for your decrepit form?"

Ed felt the free fingers of Winry's other hand curl deep into the fabric at the back of his coat, his hand still held tight, and Ed took a heavy breath – how was he supposed to get out of this? His heart raced madly, "I've never told anyone I wasn't at fault for that and I've never blamed anyone but myself for my arm or leg. Putting a wrinkle to your glorious German rise wasn't something I was doing."

"But you still let every man believe that an innocent German pilot was responsible for _you._ Every time a person looked at you with undeserved pity, you let this nation shoulder the blame to hide your sins," Adolf's words boomed in his chest, "Shameful cowardice seems to be one of your many detrimental companions."

Edward's jaw clenched, trying to take some solace from the hand that rubbed in between his shoulder blades, trying to keep him calm. Winry had no idea what this ragingly loud German conversation was about, but Edward had quite enough of this world's verbal bullshit.

His voice began to rise.

"Your country has killed _millions _of people. They went to war. They shot them in cold blood. They threw bombs and killed more," each sentence spoken drove Edward's voice a notch higher and his enunciation that much stronger, "This world created gasses that killed people slowly – you let people suffer to death. You tortured them. You flew in from the sky and killed innocent people without seeing their faces, and once the ammunition was gone the planes fled like cowards. Everyone on both sides, not just Germany, but everyone terrorized everyone else and when it was all done there were four million… _four million _people dead. FOR WHAT? What could you have possibly gained from four million deaths?" the inability to comprehend the world and the rage Edward felt for it echoed in the dome of the hall, "you kill people in droves because they aren't who and what you like! This world is nothing but death and you do it to yourselves. Why aren't you the coward? Why isn't everyone in Europe a sinful coward?"

A question posed for the entire world beyond that no one besides their non-existent God could answer.

Adolf's response came out sounding absolute, "It is the British and the French who are the sinful cowards, Edward Elric; both nations are run by the Jews. You have to fight a coward with coward's means."

Edward's jaw dropped, "You are fucking crazy."

Rolling his eyes, Adolf straightened his jacket with a sharp tug, "As your carcass has been deposited on our soil and your sorry existence has been brought in front of my eyes to clearly be seen, the ongoing sentence delivered to you from a world beyond shall continue to be administered at my discretion," his brow rose as his gaze strengthened with a thought, "we have established that you have no right to valuables or wealth from this land, so I will allow Envy the opportunity to see you lose everything."

Edward's eyes widened at the proclamation. As he searched the man's words for understanding, Edward's heart stopped when he realized he'd lost the location of Hess in the scene. Ed didn't use the moment he needed to place him, he didn't take the seconds needed to fully comprehend what Adolf had meant, and he didn't waste the time needed to determine the severity of everything. While Adolf Hitler stood unmoving before him, Edward Elric choked on his own breath and he spun on his toes, capturing Winry as she shrieked at the sound of two gunshots that burst deafeningly within the confines of the stone hall.

* * *

Crying hadn't been something Alphonse had expected to do.

The Gate was quiet again, so was Diana, and more or less so was he. The status quo of the Gate before Izumi had arrived had been reset, though Alphonse certainly didn't feel status quo, but the situation around him was.

The little Elric had cried for hours; just curled up on his side like a distraught young child. He wasn't in any physical pain, or excruciating circumstance, he just simply wanted to cry for so many things so badly… it felt like he hadn't cried in years.

When Alphonse had been in Rizembool with Izumi, Winry, Pinako, and everyone, he'd been told by Izumi that his memories had been part of the sacrifice Edward had used to bring him back.

That wasn't entirely right.

It hadn't been that Alphonse's memory had been sacrificed, it was what Ed had left out of the transmutation he executed to reclaim his brother.

Al had sacrificed himself first to save his brother's life and then Ed did the same to reclaim him. However, with the resurrection of Alphonse Elric, the transmutation had been a fundamentally incomplete process. While Al had been the Philosopher's Stone, Dante had instructed Gluttony to devour a portion of his metal body, because within Gluttony's stomach the Philosopher's Stone would crystallize. Since he'd been partially eaten, Al himself hadn't been whole when he'd vanished trying to transmute his brother, and the fact he had been the Philosopher's Stone drastically skewed his essential makeup. So when Edward had tried to bring his younger brother back through human transmutation, Ed had the formula complete, and everything was right, it was just the Gate didn't have enough material for Edward to wholly recreate his younger brother, because a portion of Al's existence remained attached to the Philosopher's Stone in Gluttony's stomach. Rather than leaving out an arm or a leg from the equation, Ed offered a chunk of Al's memory to make up for the deficiency. Memory carried more weight than physical form, so the Gate willingly accepted the deal and allowed Alphonse to be restored at his eleven-year-old state.

Now, that crystallizing chunk of his metallic Philosopher's Stone body – extracted from Gluttony's perishing form – was within Aisa. The moment Alphonse touched her he'd known it was there; he'd known instantly that it was Aisa's body now, infused with these Red Stones to preserve her flesh and human state, that was being used to continue the agonizingly slow process of crystallizing the Philosopher's Stone Gluttony had eaten. The wary feeling he'd perceived from Aisa as they stood at the Gate was a culmination of the emotional sense that missing five years of his life had been – a life that had been preserved as an imprint within the remaining Philosopher's Stone Al had once become.

Because of that, Alphonse Elric reclaimed every memory once he'd touched Aisa.

Being so close to the mouth of the Gate, the pinnacle point where all sacrifices are negotiated, a window had opened for Al to reach into and the boy ripped out his missing memories of from his imprint on the stone inside of Aisa. The reclamation of his memories had actually been easy, if not terribly uncomfortable.

Al had gotten something back for nothing, a lot of something: five years worth of memories. He'd completely bypassed the laws of Equivalent Exchange and the rules of the Gate. He hadn't used the Philosopher's Stone to take something; he'd taken something _from _the Philosopher's Stone itself.

Al spent the next several hours in tears on the ground – he'd been 'alive' for the last nine months, but from the perspective of the suit of armour he had just woken up. Al didn't have any one particular thing he was crying over, just a number of different things that made up to one big thing that was five years of his life and nine months of memory-less frustrations.

If Alphonse could look at himself as two different people, he could see the joy from the memory-less boy getting his memories back and also the sadness of what the whole of those memories were. He understood a little better why his family had been so reluctant to tell him so much of this information. From the boy who'd been armour for so long, he wanted to scream with joy or pass out from exhaustion. Every fear he'd had, even the lingering thoughts that Barry the Chopper had put into him, they had all been abolished because now Al was existing again as flesh and blood. He'd been _actualized_. The feeling of actualization was one of the things Al cried over – it was such a relief to feel free from the insecurities of the armour's inhumanity. Now, he wanted to do so much. He'd been doing things for nine months already, but Al's missing memories wanted to feel like they were now finally part of the process of sleeping, eating, drinking, showering, brushing his teeth, dressing, undressing… oh he could do that!

In a flash, Alphonse had himself undressed and twisting around in all sorts of ways to show his lost memories what it was like to be restricted by flesh and bone again and to know what it was like to move and not make a sound. The limitations of muscles and ligaments were nice to feel - he could stretch and feel the pull. The sight of his wiggling toes was fun to see. The general understanding over how his own human body looked, felt, and moved was wondrous to experience. Alphonse threw his clothes back on, savouring the feeling of how his head just popped through his t-shirt and his hair puffed up because of it.

Of all the things the little Elric wanted to accomplish, first and foremost he wanted to find a way to get his stupid older brother back, which was still the exact same plan as it had always been, he was just acutely aware of the whole situation now. He couldn't exactly scold Ed for sacrificing himself – Al had done it first, but he hadn't brought Ed back just so he could go and literally throw away his life! Brigitte even described Ed without a normal right arm or left leg, what the heck did he do with them? Scolding Ed for performing a human transmutation was hypocritical given their track record, but he wanted to give his older brother a good shot to the head for it anyways.

Al let himself fall back onto the ground and lay about, wishing the surface area of the Gate had some kind of texture to it, or sensation – hot, cold, pebbled, rough, smooth, something… really it had nothing.

Neither set of his memories did Al any good for his current situation at the Gate. Nowhere in the extra five years of his life did Al have any information about what the heck he was supposed to do about _this _situation. He was still stuck at the Gate with no idea how to get out of the situation and he suddenly worried about Diana's after the thrashing the Gate had given her as it tried to break her hold. The poor child was certainly the most innocent victim of them all.

Another string of questions struck Alphonse out of the blue and the new golden eyes looked around with concern. From the right shoulder he laid on, Al rolled to his stomach. He shuffled a twitch through his face before coming to the abrupt realization that his cheek, pressed into the sensation-less surface of the Gate's void space, could feel the surface!

Al picked his head up, pulling his face off the ground with a strange slurp.

A dark sludge, the deep red colour of blood, flowed from the base of the Gate and filled the clear space where Al had laid. The young Elric looked down at himself – the slick had stained his face, his hair, his hands, and his clothes. Al stood up, watching the liquid slowly fill in the space he'd laid, a sick feeling catching in his throat while he looked on. Brushing his hands off on his pants, Al walked through the mess, looking back at the impressions his shoe prints left before they smoothed away. He stopped nearly nose to nose with the black Gate and looked up to Diana; she lay silent.

Al crouched down to his knees again and skimmed his fingers through the liquid. It smelt like blood, and yes, when he put a dab down on his tongue, it tasted like blood. With a deep breath, Al put his hands down to the surface again and slipped them along the ground, pushing into the heavier resistance he felt beyond the Gate. When he cupped his hands, Alphonse successfully pulled a light swell of the red substance back to his side.

"Okay, so it's on both sides," Al sat back on his knees and looked up to the towering structure. There was no rumble that seemed to be forthcoming… not like last time – just the running of blood and silence. It was a lot of blood too; how many people would need to have died to create an expanding, shallow lake on both sides of this Gate? The number Al dreamt up was astounding and the thought made him queasy.

When Al picked his attention up from the substance spreading out around him, his eyes widened and he sat back, focus trained at the front of the Gate. An impression began to show in the black tar – it protruded towards him, like a stamp being pushed in from the other side. Amidst the overwhelming silence at the mouth of the Gate, Alphonse watched the impression strengthen in spots and begin to unevenly develop form. Shaking himself from the stupor of witnessing any substantial activity within the Gate, Al stood up again and stepped away to get a clearer look at the imprint.

Alphonse's heart raced the further back he stepped and the stronger the imprint became – he knew this image.

The youngest Elric brother soon stopped moving and stood silently, the bloody residue on his hands dripping from the tips of his fingers as he watched the scene unfold, his posture more rigid than the Gate had been at any point in time. The impression wasn't as big as the Gate, it might have only been the size of his arm span, but the longer Alphonse watched, the clearer the image became. He finally shook off his hands, wiping them on his shirt, eyes never leaving the activity of the black Gate. Breaths sounded heavier, eyes grew wider, his shoulders became tighter, and Alphonse Elric watched the impression of his brother's transmutation circle become clearly stamped into the black surface of the Gate's opened doors.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

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LJ mirror +3 sketches ( http : / / yuuki . livejournal . com / 116295 . html )**  
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	39. The Crimson Charm Part 2

Warning: Chapter is dark, violent, bloody, and contains numerous f-bombs (thank you, Ed). Envy was created to scare people. Bet you didn't expect to see this so soon! Happy weekend!

* * *

**Part XXXIX – Chapter 90 – The Crimson Charm (Part 2)**

Two shots sounded before metallic silence was reengaged. Ed fell forwards with Winry's weight in his arm, hearing her scream as they landed in a heap; it was one of the most horrid sounds he'd ever heard someone make. She flailed frantically beneath Ed as he scrambled off, the piercing shriek of her voice rippling through the hall. The sound was muffled when Edward grabbed Winry again and buried her face in the front of his jacket. For the brief few moments Ed was able to smother her screams, his wide, panicked eyes shot around frantically – he saw, only for the moments needed to understand Winry's uproar, a set of red holes in her left calf. The sight froze Ed where he sat, body aching while everything in his mind inexplicably derailed and came crashing to a stop in the form of a burning, mangled train wreck.

"Would you deal with your garbage, Envy?" Hitler looked to Hess, speaking like a parent instructing a child, his hands firmly clasped behind his back, his chest large and his shoulders stiff, "and Rudolf, if the Envy creature in _your_ head asks for your fingers, let him feel them. He certainly enjoyed being able to touch the world properly again when he killed Hohenheim."

Hess's hand grabbed Edward's ponytail, holding tight near the elastic band as the man yanked Edward backwards, "On your knees."

The command hadn't a hope of being obeyed.

Ed roared to life in a world where value was in death and the Elric brother beyond the Gate turned on a ghost from his past. With a raging clenched fist, Edward rose and spun around, slamming his knuckles heavily into Hess's cheekbone, attempting to plough his entire arm through the man's face. Hess was thrown back, not given enough time to yelp before Ed struck him again, and then Ed sent the firearm flying out of the man's hand with a swift kick of his right boot. Hess staggered again when Edward crashed the base of his foot hard into the man's stomach. He finally drove the terror off his feet, rushing Hess backwards when Ed's left shoulder slammed into the monstrosity's chest. Edward rammed their bodies into the immovable stone wall encasing the hall and the enclosure spat dust back at them in protest of the assault. The pair bounced back from the wall, Hess taking a wild swing at Ed that connected only with air. With all the pent up, indelible rage in his eyes, Ed's left hand grabbed the face of Envy's new flesh shell and slammed Hess into the cement wall. Ed reared his left arm back, his fist quickly flying in and charging through Hess' face, throwing him aside. Ed reached out and grabbed Hess by his shirt before he could fall away and returned him to an upright position against the wall, his fist striking again but not registering that the combatant had become unresponsive. Edward's arm reared back once more. The unplanned attempt to destroy the man Adolf had addressed as Envy with his single left hand was spoilt when an auxiliary gunshot rang out.

Ed felt his left ankle slip out from beneath him at the force of the shot and he heard the mechanical joint crack. Staggering to regain balance, Edward collapsed with a frustrated wail when his left ankle broke beneath him. Both men collapsed in separate heaps on the floor.

"That's poor sportsmanship, Edward."

Adolf stood at the precipice of the room lowering his own firearm. As Ed lifted his head and looked at the scene at the centre of the hall, Adolf's shoes began scraping along the floor and he walked up to the edge of the transmutation circle. Edward's brow rose and his eyes widened, watching as the commander of oppression produced the doll Ed had given Winry for Christmas from within his coat. With the tilt of his head, Adolf compared the little thing to the reeling girl on the floor, before letting the gift carelessly fall from his hands and land limp on the ground. Adolf gave the doll a light kick along the floor as he walked towards Winry, setting the hammer of his revolver.

"NO," Edward screamed, stumbling to his knees, unable to rise to his feet on a shattered ankle, "Don't touch her! Don't fucking touch her!"

Adolf stopped Ed in mid motion and looked at him hotly, pointing his firearm at Winry on the ground. With an abundance of smug prowess in his eyes, Adolf made an effort of keeping Edward in his vision as he knelt down beside Winry, "I'm a little torn, Edward. Though I am disgusted with the kind of plague you've besieged my Germany with, it is quite fascinating to converse with Envy when he's not literally talking in my ear. He's as good a conversationalist in words as he is in thought. Imagine my surprise at his sheer audacity to seek me out after what he'd done to me." Adolf moved with precise calculation and the man's left hand came down over the bloodied wound on Winry's leg.

Digging the heel of her good leg into a groove on the floor, Winry tried to push herself away. She choked and stopped when Adolf's hand put pressure on the wound and then tapped the barrel of his weapon on the floor as a reminder. Even after she'd stopped, Adolf still took a moment to stare Winry down, before lunging in and crashing his grasp down around her throat – pinning her to the ground.

"Adolf!" If Edward could fly like the wind, Adolf would have never touched her again.

"Envy understands the ways of man so magnificently, as much as what you've done repulses me, the fact I'm allowed access to such a resource… well… it _is_ an asset." Adolf caused Ed to tense as his right hand took a secure hold of his weapon. The man's heavy eyes dug into Winry, watching her breathe frantically as his oppressive presence pinned her to the ground. The left hand at her throat moved and pushed heavily through Winry's face, brushing through her hair, and prying her eyes open. The world moved at his command, controlled by the rhythmic metallic sound made every time Adolf's thumb tapped the poised hammer of his revolver. "Envy had two burning things he wished to accomplish while he was with me, Edward. One was to see your father dead – and I must say I have never encountered any sort of animal with such a desire for wicked vengeance. It was as terrifying as it was fascinating."

The conductor of this nightmare sat back from Winry abruptly and Adolf's arm tore out, sinking his hand into the front of her jacket. Winry's fingers snapped to Adolf's wrist as the man hauled her upright.

"Secondly, he wanted to watch you lose everything," every word that Adolf spoke drove the rotation of the room, and he spun it wildly around Edward, leaving him nauseous, "I don't disagree with that, since I'm of the opinion that you deserve nothing. A man as disgusting as you – born to a sinful family, guilty of sin himself – doesn't deserve anything of value. You somehow found the gall to use _this nation _as a shield to hide your sins to further your efforts to escape this world."

The air had become so cold that Ed found it hard to breathe in, "That is not what I did!"

Adolf scoffed, his breath leaving a white puff in the chilled air, "You are nothing more than a disease ridden parasite on this earth, eating the food that some far more deserving German child should have eaten. Criminals and sinners and others like them lose their right to privileges and have to relinquish items of value, but this appears to belong to you," Adolf shook Winry, watching Ed's teeth grind; words were delivered cold and emotionless, without a sneer or glimmer of satisfaction, "Is this something that has value to you from a life you're not permitted to have?"

Edward Elric had clapped his hands to revive his younger brother, and for this act he'd deprived himself of his family, his friends, people he could trust, and a safe place to be. He'd given up his home, everything he knew, and all the things he valued. He felt himself drown in this world he couldn't stand, felt himself choke on their morals, watched himself become a shadow of the person he'd thought he was, and exist as a figment of the person he wanted to be. Yet when Edward could see himself at the bottom of the abyss this world was for him, those times he felt himself dying in the shadows, Winry still looked at him, spoke to him, and treated Edward Elric like he was still the person he thought he'd sacrificed. He didn't believe he could qualify that with value.

"My answer's not going to matter; it won't to change your reaction, will it?"

"Ultimately I want to know what a man will do to keep what little he has and how his morals change to accommodate preservation. I'd like to find out how to control that," Adolf glanced to Winry as the cold explanation filled the room and again Winry was rattled, "Edward Elric, you must answer the question: is this something that has value from the life you are not entitled to?"

Ed's pinpoint eyes stared at the firearm in Adolf's right hand; no matter what he did, he was nowhere near close enough to prevent it from firing at anyone. The mere seconds that began ticking by were not enough time to find the wherewithal to breathe in the cascading horror that crashed down around him, let alone begin to compose an answer.

Before those first few precious moments even finished passing by, a sick sensation lurched into Ed's throat. He broke free from the distance Adolf held him at when the monster disengaged his weapon and flipped it in his hand, grabbing the revolver by its barrel. Edward scrambled forward on hand and knees before he even realized he was doing it. Adolf's arm snapped to his backhand and swung to strike Winry with the butt end of the gun. The attack derailed when Winry's arms flew out and she grabbed Adolf by the wrist before he could land a blow. The tips of her fingers dug sharply into his flesh and Adolf jerked his arm, unable to free himself from Winry's grasp. Edward hit the scene and slammed his right foot to the floor, quickly rising up onto the one good leg. His body swung with all his forward momentum and Edward put the left knee Winry had constructed into the side of Adolf's face with a loud crack. The wretched man fell back on impact and Ed came crashing down between the pair.

Flying to his knees, Ed turned to face Adolf, balancing on the fake left knee and anchoring himself with his right foot. Edward's eyes caught Adolf re-grip his weapon and Ed lunged forward, grabbing hold of the barrel of the revolver before it could be properly pointed at anyone.

With no interest in fighting his way through Edward's strength, Adolf made use of Ed's one-armed handicap and he grabbed his opponent by the throat with his free hand. There was nothing Ed could do to fight it off, all options relinquished control of the firearm to Adolf, so Edward was forced to close his eyes and deal with the nearly intolerable sensation of this man's one hand attempting to strangle him. The struggle swung sharply Adolf's way when his left thumb dug into the hollow of Ed's throat.

Without warning the captor hastily threw Edward back. Ed opened his eyes with enough time to see the pencil Winry brandished barely miss the stab she'd taken at Adolf's hand. Discarded by Adolf and weakened by the chokehold, Edward fell back onto Winry in a heap.

The man who looked mightily down upon them straightened himself and stood up, rising over everything like a cataclysm. Furious golden eyes looked at him from below as Edward came around on his backside between Winry and their armed predator. Winry compacted herself behind Ed while he tried to tuck her away, the still-bleeding wounds on her leg smearing across the stone flooring each time she moved. Adolf tilted his head a little and cocked his gun, watching Ed tense and expand his chest with a deep breath. The monster gave a laugh at the effort, pointed his weapon, and shot the little plush doll lying harmlessly on the floor.

* * *

Once the imprint into the Gate had been fully set and shock of seeing the transmutation circle appear wore off, Al was frustratingly left to his own devices. The last time the Gate had filled with blood, Diana cried and the rumble passed through; now there was blood and an alchemy sigil. None of it made any sense. Left with only sleuth techniques, Al wandered around the spill of blood, which by now stretched as far as the eye could see. It was also upgraded from a skim to a slick; Alphonse shut down the part of his brain telling him the stench he smelt and surface he walked on was litres upon litres of spilt blood from the world beyond.

What needed to be focused on was how his brother's transmutation circle had become stamped into the backside of the Gate. Alphonse inarguably concluded it was his brother's, because the chance of it being someone else's, or even entirely random, was laughable.

"How could something like that show up?" Al asked himself aloud. From everything that Alphonse Elric knew, from everything that Brigitte's information from beyond the Gate had taught him over time, what did he know and was any of it important?

Al's thoughts turned first to what Wrath had said after Alphonse had left the comforts of Mustang's protection and gone chasing after him on his own: Dante had severed his father's bonds, which would make alchemy impossible. If Al tied that together to the absence of his brother, it would make sense that if both his dad and his brother were beyond the Gate that they'd be in the same situation - completely unable to perform alchemy, explaining why Ed hadn't brought himself home. Obviously, they hadn't befriended anyone beyond the Gate who would assist them in getting home, so Ed and his father would be flying solo.

The youngest Elric rubbed his eyes, trying to think – his head swimming with what felt like answers on the tip of his tongue. Alphonse drew his thoughts back to the imprint on the Gate; how did this happen? What would trigger the transmutation circle that was sent? Who would do it?

"Probably my brother," Al answered his question aloud – it was the most logical answer considering what the symbol was. If his brother's bonds were separated, then how would he accomplish this? Al didn't know.

The boy's next train of thought turned to their visitor from beyond the Gate. From what Al had gathered, Brigitte was alchemy illiterate – she showed no aptitude for it or understanding or even interest in the materials she had in her possession when she'd come over. She never once attempted it, which Al thought might be a little strange for a girl who came from an supposed alchemy utopia. From Brigitte's pictures that they'd looked over while in Maria Ross's lake cabin, there was a dangerous transmutation circle carved into the stone floor – if this girl from beyond the Gate did not have any interest in alchemy, why would she photograph it? Why would anyone let her get close to it? Why would utopian alchemy allow something so bastardized to be created in the first place? Al questioned the world beyond the Gate – shouldn't they know better than that? Brigitte obviously had ties to his brother, so maybe it wasn't that it was Brigitte who was actually interested in the circle, perhaps her photos were taken because of his brother.

If that was the case, the younger brother had to seriously wonder what his older brother could possibly want with a transmutation circle that gross… beyond mock it or keep a safe distance from it. For some reason, a young girl with ties to his brother thought the rebounding transmutation circle was important enough to be photographed and let herself get close enough to it to photograph it. Didn't Brigitte realize the danger? Surely, Ed wouldn't have allowed her to go to this location – he would have recognized how badly something like that would rebound if anyone took a single misstep around it. He couldn't possibly have encouraged it, since Ed knew better than anyone the kind of damage the rebound would cause.

Alphonse's voice suddenly aired out, his words escaping him before his thoughts fully came together, "Wait... it rebounds…"

A little light lit brightly within Al's thoughts.

Oh.

_Oh._

Al examined some fallen mental dominoes and stepped up closer to the Gate, "A rebound is caused by an improperly constructed transmutation that cannot be balanced because a part of the equation is wrong – a portion of the alchemist is used to make up for the discrepancy. It rebounds to the Gate because that's the power source, attempting an exchange…"

A single eyebrow fell heavily and Alphonse stared intently at the open Gate. Transmutation circles are the mediator between an alchemist and the power source for alchemy, so if the Gate doors were open then transmutation circles on both sides had access to the power. So, how did this new bit of knowledge explain why a transmutation circle would be _stamped_ into the Gate? Al folded his arms. What did he know so far about the Gate? The power to perform alchemy came from the Gate, it was a source of knowledge for alchemists, its doors opened towards his side, and there was a back side of the Gate for the other world. There were angry black creatures within the Gate that were greedy and devoured their offerings without equivalent exchange or any remorse. Then there was the Gate itself that refused to facilitate communications between the two worlds, like they were forbidden to meet.

Tightening his arms at his chest, Al searched his mind for what might be missing. He had to be missing a connection. His face scrunched, arms fell apart, and the heels of his hands pushed through his eyes as he tried to think harder; Al could feel some kind of answer sitting _right there._

"Got it!" Al right index finger flew out, "when we perform alchemy and draw power from the Gate for it, the doors crack open and allow the power to be pulled through. Alchemy is a power _draw _from the Gate_,_ we PULL power, we can't push it. But if I was standing on the other side, I can't draw power from the Gate because I'd have to push open the doors first because of the direction they open, then do a transmutation! They don't open the right way beyond the Gate to _draw _power. You can't get to the Gate without alchemy so you can't open the doors and you can't do alchemy!"

But a rebound would push 'material' to the Gate.

Al's hands fell and arms slapped down at his side; stubbornly he hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and returned to glaring at the Gate. Al's theory explained why no one beyond the Gate had attempted to access his side of the Gate – they couldn't. Unless the doors to the Gate were opened from his side, the world on the other side couldn't do alchemy. At all. The realization left Al feeling a little sunken, turning his entire impression of the world beyond on its head. That mean the alchemy utopia couldn't practice alchemy. Dante's motives were flawed. The entire Theory of Beyond the Gate, what Dante's entire motivation was based off of, was _flawed._

Taking a deep breath, Al stood at the Gate with the doors open for everyone. He had to swallow this information and move on. The breath was exhaled swiftly and the younger Elric brother shook his head – if the doors were open, energy should be allowed to flow back to the other side of the Gate… shouldn't it? Obviously someone was trying to do alchemy beyond the Gate, since his brother's transmutation circle was printed right in front of him. There had to be more that was flawed.

"If the doors only swing one way, maybe the energy current only goes one way too?" Alphonse's thumb rubbed his left eye as he looked at his brother's sigil.

What was the energy an alchemist took from the Gate anyways? What kind of energy was he taking from beyond the Gate that allowed the people of Amestris, heck his whole world, the power to perform alchemy? Why did it seem like the Gate structure only allowed for a one-way flow of that power?

Al's brow rose as he began to slowly pace in front of the Gate, "Maybe the flow really does only goes in one direction – like a river." Like the slow flow of blood at his feet. With everything the young man knew, that made a surprising amount of sense. Why bother having a Gate with doors swinging both ways when there's no reason for the doors to open in both directions. What Alphonse Elric wouldn't give to know just what exactly that power was that they were taking from beyond the Gate, it would certainly help him a lot. For some reason, the world beyond the Gate had no way of recalling its own pool of power, yet his side could draw from it.

"So my brother's symbol was able to recognize the Gate, get to the Gate, but it has no way of getting power from the Gate. That's why it's stamped like that; it's trapped on the other side like he is."

That still didn't explain how it got there. Something else was missing. The young Elric sighed, taking a moment to mentally sort his thoughts so far. Not only were his father and brother's bonds disconnected beyond the Gate, but there was no energy flow as well. If this was his brother's sigil, he would have had to find some way to take a minute amount of power and then initiate a transmutation.

How in the world would Edward Elric have done that?

* * *

The pile of Envy's new flesh on the floor finally stirred and Edward shot his focus over to the scene. With a lengthy groan, a curse, and a careful rub to the back of his head, Hess's body slowly rose to his knees. Ed watched with uncertainty, fallen on his backside and propped up by his only arm with Winry behind him as the man picked his head up.

"Hess, you ignorant son of a bitch," Ed's voice found an outlet, "did you just let Envy walk right into your head?"

"I had to do a lot of convincing to get Adolf to consider this situation," pulling to his feet and dusting off his pants, a calamity with the face of Rudolf Hess gathered his bearings, "Despite his drawbacks, the gift you describe as Envy is a wealthy source of information and knowledge we would be foolish to simply discard…"

The bitter and resentful sound of Ed's sarcastic laugh cracked into the cold hall, "The gift…"

Hess moved about the hall silently for a few moments, forcing everyone to listen to the clap of his shoes on the frozen ground before finally locating his weapon. A smile peeked back into the room, "You're trying pretty damn hard to take care of your own little gift, HalfMetal."

Edward paled at the sudden onset of English words coming from Hess' tongue.

The man's arm swept down emphatically, catching the ring around the trigger in his index finger, "But you don't get to have those kind of things here."

Ed stiffened, his shoulders rising, shifting his position to keep between Envy within Hess and Winry as her fingers again curled into the fabric at the sides of his jacket, "You can fuck off."

"Gonna need soap for that," Envy's borrowed eyes rolled as he sauntered his way back to the sigil's outer ring. The influx of Envy into the persona that had been Hess completely transformed how the Nazi officer came across – Hess stood square, evenly balanced, strong and proper; Envy was loose, casual, slouched and nonchalant. The sin's eyes were emphatically flat and uncaring towards the scene of two people on the floor and, without a moment's notice, the firearm dangling from a finger snapped cleanly into Envy's right hand and a deafening gunshot sailed past Edward's left ear.

There hadn't been time to gasp and Winry's shriek sounded as though it came long after the fact; Ed sat trapped in mid-reaction, unable to fully realize the fear of looking down the barrel of a gun and unable to release himself from the shock that it had been fired without thought or hesitation. His left ear rang and the stalled reaction crumbled as Envy laughed, echoing in a new voice saturated with cruel delight.

"I love that look on you, HalfMetal. Did you piss yourself too?" Envy had a sneer that could rip any man's grin wide, "I'd love to see what other faces I can get out of Hohenheim's bastard kid." The satisfied grin grew through Envy's new face, feeding off of the reactions invading Edward's eyes. Moving to stand at the elder Elric brother's feet, Envy abruptly dropped to his knees causing Edward to lean back, though not far or quickly enough to escape from Envy grabbing hold of the front fall of hair framing Ed's face. Envy yanked him forward, forcing Ed to sit up tall. Envy's eyes fell contently and he put himself nose to nose with his new Elric toy. The new face of man's oldest sin smiled, "Not much left of you, eh?"

Edward's left hand charged in, taking Envy by the throat. The amount of force Ed had desired for his grip was never realized; the cold, circular tip of the firearm in Envy's right hand touched down on Ed's temple to dissuade him.

"Imagine what happens to things of value if you force me to make sure you're not able to take care of them."

Edward took a few moments to breathe before his hand cautiously withdrew from Envy's neck and the satisfied sneer that sat nose to nose with him beamed.

"As I see it, the reason you are here is because you offered yourself in exchange for your baby brother; that's really the only conclusion I can come to. He went poof when he used that Philosopher's Stone on you, am I right?" Envy grinned as the question went unanswered, "So you gave it all up just for him, aren't you the hero," the cold metallic weapon slowly traced down from Ed's temple, crawling along his jaw line, pushing harshly into the bone behind the flesh, "Now you're here because you have become nothing, you get nothing, and you gave up everything. You made a decision HalfMetal; sure, you might have saved your kid brother, but you did that and the consequences deprived you of the right to anything you used to be," a single brow peaked in Envy's expression, examining the raging golden eyes drilling through him as the weapon traced Edward's facial features. Envy tapped the revolver on the bridge of Ed's nose, "Oh that's fun, but what I want to see is how fear eats you alive."

"I hope you start to rot in this hell someday," angered words rumbled deep in Ed's chest, and his eyes stole a glimpse of Adolf casting his dead gaze over the unfolding scene.

"Rotting was that old bastard's problem, not mine," Envy returned the tip of his weapon to Edward's chin, pulling the path down slowly along his throat – his words continued, "Let's see let's see… so, you gave them all up. You don't get those discarded things back, HalfMetal. You don't get your little brother back, you don't get your little family back, and you don't get your little world back," the course of Envy's gun stopped at the centre of Ed's chest and the creature holding him in submission watched while the deep and heavy breaths swelled through his plaything's body. More delicious than watching how Ed fought against showing fear was watching Winry's arms wrap around his waist from behind, fingers gripping tight into the fabric at his midsection. Envy peered around from Ed's open right side, eyeing the girl clinging tight with her face pushed into his back. The round tip of the revolver pushed harshly into Edward's chest and the only reaction Ed gave was the tightening of his jaw. Envy grinned, reaffirming his grip in Edward's hair.

The monster leaned in close, the elbow of the arm holding his prey by a fist-full of golden hair hooked around the back of Edward's head, the weapon digging into Ed's chest was removed and the wrist controlling the trigger came to rest lazily on Ed's good shoulder, pointed who-knows-where behind him. Envy's amusement at the situation was ecstatic by how Edward stiffened and tensed the closer the sin came and the more invasive he asserted his presence. Envy abolished Ed's entitlement to personal space, drawing in tight and putting his right cheek against the side of his toy's head for a moment, able to feel Edward's jaw clench, before the voice of sin filled the alchemist's head and Envy made sure Ed could feel the movement of warm lips against his chilled ear when the nightmare whispered.

"You aren't entitled to anything like that here, not even gifts that fall through the Gate; and you know what, I think even _you_ know that."

The trigger on the firearm was pulled a second time, a deafening noise at Edward's left ear. Ed's body jerked sharply at the sound, abruptly locking his motions and losing his breath. Golden eyes flew about madly while Envy kept his presence tight to ensure Edward remained still. The subtle sound of the giggling sin remained pressed against Ed's ear, clearly feeling the full extent of how the grin tore into the monstrosity's face. Ed found distraction to Envy's invasion in the claw of Winry's fingers into his abdomen, knuckles surely turning white, and the push of her forehead into his back. The bullet had found a home somewhere in the far reaches of the hall.

Envy picked his head up suddenly, "How ya doing back there, princess? Still bleedin' all over my floor?"

"Shut up," Winry's voice rattled.

"Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, doesn't it?"

"SHUT UP."

Ed threw his shoulders and upper body forward, pushing Envy away and out of any conversation with Winry. The grip the sin had in Edward's hair became fierce and Ed was jerked back into place, the firearm returning to perch on his collar bone. Everyone with ears could hear the anvil of the weapon being set in the ice cold silence. Ed forced himself through a dry swallow as his heart raced faster than his breathing could keep up. He grit his teeth again as Envy returned to being nose to nose with him; the sin's hungered eyes devouring the panic, nerves, and fear breaking free into Edward's eyes.

"Well, that's more like what I want from you, that's good… but you can do better than that," Envy's excitement began to bubble happily in his words, "we're just getting warmed up, I want to see you absolutely terrified of what I'm going to do to you, because despite what you might think, you aren't superman here, kiddo. When I know you're aware of the kind of pathetic man you are, I'll make you tell me how it feels to be some useless, helpless human all beleaguered and broken and shit," Envy mused playfully, refocusing from his current entertainment to the longer term plan, "since you're all that's left of that bastard's blood, I'll let you live long enough to watch how I take everything that you have left," Envy's gun slipped quickly down, the tip of the weapon deliberately catching Winry's fingers and giving a half hearted effort to pry them off, "then if I feel like it, I'll keep your shell alive to live with the consequences. How's that sound?"

Ed jerked quickly – Envy had leaned in so close that there wasn't time for him to react against Ed's movements, and the blonde cracked his forehead against Envy's. The creature reeled back in surprise, releasing Ed's hair as his hand came to his face. Edward fell back and was able to lean far enough away that Envy missed the wild swat his armed hand took at his rebellious toy. Lunging forward, Ed went to capture the firearm locked in Envy's right hand, but his fingers missed the flesh wrist as the sin moved, only catching the ends of the shirt sleeve. Though he saw it coming, Ed had no way of defending himself against the heavy backhanded strike of the metal weapon Envy slammed through his cheek bone. Winry shrieked at the sight and sound, losing her hold as the attack threw Ed aside, leaving him hunched over his left arm on the ground. A quick stream of blood ran through his face from a torn gash, dripping to the floor as he tried to breathe.

"Save your energy HalfMetal, the sun hasn't even started to set, so we still have all kinds of time to play," Envy's heavy feet stomped on the floor as he stood up, "First game we play goes to Adolf here – he's got a little somethin' for ya. I have a hefty bet riding on the outcome, so don't disappoint me, a'right?"

Edward rolled his jaw, eyes peeking out from beyond the hair fallen in his face. He watched as Adolf popped open the barrel of the revolver he carried and dumped out the remaining bullets into his hand.

For this purpose alone, Adolf ensured his spoken language remained German, "Here are three options, please teach me something useful about yourself, Edward. We have company waiting upstairs, so let's not have them sit idle for more than fifteen minutes," Adolf requested with a chill in his words and stare. He glanced at Winry as Ed struggled to reposition himself as her shield, knowing full well that she would have no understanding of his words, "if you come up those stairs to the church, within the walls of our God's place of worship, you two will be put out of your misery. Quick and simple: one shot for each of you to the back of the head."

"Are you people fucking insane?" Edward's sharp voice finally re-surfaced.

Adolf paid no attention to the outburst, "However, if you do not emerge within the fifteen minutes, our company will come down here to retrieve you," his emotionless eyes sliced into the golden Elric, "what is done to you, how long it lasts, and what becomes of you will not be my concern. Both of you might even survive."

Before Ed's voice could rise again, Adolf took to the mastery of show once again and held out his hand with the five bullets. With sharp and precise movements to every motion he made, three of the five bullets were slipped into his pocket. Like a magician showing his magic trick, the remaining two bullets were returned to the chamber of the revolver, clicked shut, and Adolf placed the weapon down at the edge of the transmutation circle.

"And if you choose neither option, then I leave you the option of taking your own lives. You have fifteen minutes to make a choice, use it wisely."

Hitler's words burned like acid spilt over raw, open wounds, destroying the flesh and corroding the golden Elric as he watched the two men turn to walk away. Envy's smile peeking back at them brightly, no matter how far into the darkness the men ventured.

* * *

Alphonse glanced up at Diana. The infant lay silently and motionless up in the stone hands of the Gate. The thought that a defenceless infant was being used for such a diabolical purpose was beyond maddening. Disgusted wasn't quite the word Alphonse was looking for, but he didn't think there was a better one out there. Diana had cried last time the Gate space had filled with blood; she'd been unsettled and upset, yet for some reason Al couldn't identify, _this _instance didn't upset her. He was quite thankful that there was no rumble.

Walking up to the front of the Gate, Alphonse sunk his finger into the black tar and pulled them out again – no new red stains, no black remnants; they came out exactly as he'd put them in. He submerged his entire hand to do the test again and came up with the same result. Al tried it twice for argument's sake and again got nothing for his efforts. He sighed.

The youngest Elric, now with sixteen years of life up his sleeve, gave the Gate a twisted look. With a glimmer in his eye he thought of something new and Alphonse wrote his name in the black tar of the Gate, and then watched as it slowly vanished. The twisted look became a stubborn frown – he was kind of hoping something would happen; this Gate was bleeding and had a transmutation circle printed on it, there had to be _something _going on or something he could do about it. The last time this had happened, the rumble had come through and his eyes had changed colour. Dante had even mentioned a prior time when a rumble came… which ultimately had been Brigitte. So if the Gate rumbled when something was coming through, why had the Gate rumbled and bled the last time? What came through the last time? Did anything come through at all? Maybe something did and that's what took Dante? If so, what caused all the blood?

There were a million impossible questions for Alphonse to sort through and he was going to have to narrow them down to the ones most relevant to the here and now.

Alphonse's ears picked up a strange sound. His thought process stopped and he listened to the sound, almost certain he thought he was hearing raindrops. That couldn't be right. Al looked around quickly, looking down to his feet to see tiny particles hit the blood at his feet, plop into the liquid like a raindrop and then vanish. Looking up, Al had to shield his face when a few small pebbles hit his cheeks. A crack tore through the silent space at the Gate and a chunk of stone from above crashed down to the surface. It had landed so close to Alphonse that he'd felt the breeze as it went by and found himself covered in the red splash up to his waist. He scrambled back as he watched the top ornament of the Gate's magnificent structure begin to crumble and break.

Alphonse's eyes flew wide in alarm, "NO STOP!"

Diana was cradled by the crumbling structure.

"NO, YOU CAN'T," Al yelled at the Gate as though it were responsible for everything, realizing that he was simply dancing in circles, completely unable to get anywhere near the front of the Gate as the entire stone ornament atop the massive doors began to come crashing down, infant and all.

"**STOP!**"

Helplessly, Alphonse was forced to turn away and cover his face, wishing he'd covered his ears instead, because he received an earful of sound as the stone hit the red ground with a bang.

The young Elric stood with his hands over his face for some time as the silence reasserted itself, afraid to turn back and see the consequences. No sound came from Diana – she gave no cry, no wail, no sob, not even a peep. Of all things in the world, a dead baby was not something Al wanted to see, and the simple thought of it twisted everything deep inside his chest. Though, once Alphonse wrangled his thoughts together cohesively to begin to rationalize what he'd just seen, he realized that he hadn't heard Diana at all – she hadn't cried as the structure crumbled or while she'd fallen either. Alphonse's hands slid slowly off his face, pulling his skin tight as he did. With nerves and trepidation on high, he turned around and looked at the mess at the foot of the Gate.

Something squawked.

Alphonse froze where he stood, eyes wide. It was a strange sound that was too coarse to the human and was accompanied by the strangest echo. Diana was an alchemically engineered child, a victim of bastardized human transmutation techniques. As Alphonse believed it, she was a 'hermaphrodite' mix of a human child from his side and some infantile creature Dante had managed to scoop out from within the Gate. Diana hadn't been fused with something from beyond the Gate because Dante couldn't reach that far, so Al's theory was that Diana was part Gate creature, which would explain why she kept the eyes and arms of the Gate from appearing.

Al finally moved closer, peering over the fallen chunks of stone, listening to the horrid sound, and he finally caught sight of the baby squirming beneath the unravelled blanket she'd once been wrapped in. The noise the baby made amongst the mess was like fingernails on a chalk board. Alphonse ordered his stomach to stay calm as he reached down for her. Cautiously uncovering one of Dante's most heinous crimes, Al scanned the child that no longer bore any resemblance to the human child she'd once been. Her skin had turned midnight black and her features had warped from head to toe. The tiny distraught existence wiggled unhappily on the ground and told Alphonse's eyes that he had indeed been correct - Dante had used some kind of creature from the Gate to fuse with Diana. The more Al thought about it and the more he stared at what Diana had become, the more it seemed as though the Gate creature fused with Diana had either taken over or her humanity had died off.

"I'm sorry," Alphonse let the statement slip softly. Stepping around and moving aside the fallen debris, the young man knelt down and collected the remaining portions of Diana that had been stolen from the Gate, re-bundling her body in the blanket.

"I honestly don't know what happened to you, but I'm sorry no one ever gave you a proper chance," he wrapped the baby blanket tight around Diana, begging his nerves to stay focused on the task at hand and not sink into the concerns he had for the blackened infant – he would mourn the baby later when everything wasn't literally falling apart, "and I'm sorry if what happened between me and Aisa caused this. I had no idea it would." With a tight jaw and stiff upper lip, Alphonse took the baby into his arms and stood up. He kicked aside some of the debris, took the few steps needed to be standing toe to toe with the Gate, and came down to his knees. With a deep breath Al put Diana on his forearms and secured her with his hands, he slid the remains along the surface of the Gate, and Al pushed her darkened body back beyond the Gate, "and thank you if you've helped keep me safe all this time. Now I think you should go home."

In the thickness beyond the Gate, Alphonse slipped his arms out from under her and returned what was left of the infant to the darkness a part of her had once come from. He sat back on his knees for a number of endless moments, trying to ensure he remained composed – this wasn't a good time for him to lose his composure – before the younger Elric brother finally infused enough strength into his veins to stand up again. His feet kicked aside some fallen chunks of stone, his hands throwing the larger pieces, before Alphonse boiled over with frustration and he turned to face the Gate.

"Goddammit Dante!" his soiled hands clenched and his voice scratched, "what have you done? How can you live with yourself after doing things like that? I just…" the tightly gripped hands came apart and fell loosely at his sides, "I just don't understand how someone can do these things to people. To innocent people! This is wrong! This is all WRONG."

Golden eyes fell distraught to the mess at his feet, eyeing the red stains saturating his clothes, looking at his hands that he had nowhere to wipe clean. Al again tried to breathe and calm himself from the situation that was growing overwhelming.

"Why are the doors still open?" Al voiced the thought as it hit him and he looked up to the Gate once more. Minus Diana positioned as the Gate's crown, everything was exactly the same as it had been before she came tumbling down. Why _was _the Gate still open and calm? The Gate was held at bay by Diana, but now Diana was out of the equation – where were the eyes or reaching arms? Al's eyes glanced from side to side; there was too much information to sort out. His hands scratched feverishly through his hair.

Something had to be causing this situation. From what he'd heard of the Gate and what he understood about Diana, what element present now was different than any other point in time if Diana was removed from the equation?

The blood.

The blood flowed in from beyond the Gate and it was still flowing, making it a constant element linking both sides. It was nearly up to Alphonse's ankles now, a fact he tried to shove out of his mind as quickly as he'd recognized it. So, the blood was flowing in from beyond the Gate; perhaps it was acting like a doorstop of some kind? Maybe the infusion of the red swell had locked down the Gate to a moment in time where both sides could share this material – which meant if it ever stopped or went away, at that point the Gate would reset. For Alphonse's situation that would have to make sense. Which meant when whatever was causing the run of blood ended or dried up, so would this relative peace at the Gate.

* * *

The long, dark shadows in the hall vanished before the sound of footsteps did. Edward's eyes remained on the darkened escape Hitler and Envy had taken, but heard Winry shift on the floor. Cautiously, Ed looked back – uncertain which was more frightening, taking his eyes off of the vanishing point of their predators, or facing the wounds and damages left behind. Ed's stomach sat at his collarbone as he turned to the veil of long, soiled blonde hair Winry was behind. Her left leg was stretched out awkwardly at her side, stained in crimson red, and her upper body turned away from it. Winry's breathing shivered, but other than that, she was silent. The heels of her trembling hands pushed in under the messy veil of blonde that fell everywhere and Ed reached out, sweeping the hair out of Winry's face. Watered-down blue eyes eventually looked up to the muted golden gaze as Edward's hand held her hair away, neither one saying a word. Both sets of eyes shifted when Winry's fingers came down onto the deep, bloody gash high on Edward's cheek.

There was only fifteen minutes to work with to undermine a dictated future, but a precious sixty seconds of that was stolen by Edward – he hid his grip in the mess of Winry's hair, brought her forehead into his shoulder, and sat silently with her as he attempted to regain _some kind_ of control.

Though Ed wasn't sure if he was meant to feel relieved or sick that she wasn't crying.

Trembling fingertips slowly curled into the fabric of Ed's coat and the sound of Winry's shivering breaths were hidden as he held onto her. A wounded voice eventually sunk into Edward's jacket, "My leg really hurts."

"I'm so sorry," the most inadequate three words he'd ever voiced.

He couldn't be in this place in his head; Ed had to get out – now. There wasn't time to succumb to the catastrophe unfolding. He couldn't look at Winry and see failure, he couldn't continue to hear Envy and feel worse, because the bar of failure was set for them: fifteen minutes into the future. There wasn't _time _to feel remorse and regret. Edward couldn't let himself feel anything that would take up more of their time. He abruptly and hastily worked on shutting enough of himself down to pick his head up and begin creating a way to move forwards.

Ed turned and glanced to the wounded leg that Winry had extended as the emptiness set in and then sat back when Winry picked her head up off of him. The words out of his mouth were taking longer to be voiced than his teetering jaw was prepared for, "We should look after your leg."

Ed fumbled around on the floor, collecting a scarf from the winter wears they'd discarded earlier in their day, and Ed slipped one end of the garment into Winry's hand, asking for her to hold it. Ed glanced over to Winry as he began to wrap the leg, watching fragments of blue eyes peek at him, trying to find their own level of composure. Ed pulled the scarf tight, cringing when she flinched, but had to ask Winry to help him tie it off since he couldn't do that on his own with only one hand.

The most unbearable silence preceded Edward's subsequent attempts at composing sentences.

"I need your help," Ed waited for Winry to look at him. He hesitated before sticking out his own left leg and taking the shoe off, letting the broken shards of the shattered ankle fall out of his footwear while the foot hung ajar, "I need you to take off the foot piece."

"Okay…" she neither asked what for nor why, though to Ed's relief she showed moderate disgust at the sight of her broken work. Winry slowly reached out, stretching herself along the ground, the tips of her fingers snagging her discarded bag – it always had tools in it.

"Do you have a screwdriver I can use?" Ed rolled up his pant leg. A screwdriver abruptly landed in his left hand. Edward straightened his leg, eyeing the crack he'd put in the kneecap, but finding no other functional damage. The screwdriver head slipped into a notch and Ed began to tighten his knee joint amidst the sound of Winry's cutters as she set to work. From the corner of his vision he watched her fumble between cutters, pliers, and a second screwdriver as she fought with the mangled foot piece. Ed glanced up when Winry reached hastily into her bag, watching in concern when she produced a hammer and slammed it down one handed, then two-handed on the joint, dumping the wooden handle from her fingers once she was done. Winry feverishly attacked the mangled ankle with her cutters once more, finally discarding her tool upon hearing a definitive 'snap'. She swept the mess away, folded her arms, and looked back at Ed with an unsettled flush through her face.

"It's off," she announced hoarsely, "now what?"

Ed sat silently, the seam of his mouth undone, poised to speak and finding it hard to choose what words to say. His eyes shifted away, "I'll find a way out for us."

* * *

What happens to Alphonse when this stops? The last occurrence of anything at the Gate stopped fairly quickly, so how much time was he running on right now? Would the Gate swallow him? Would it send him away? If he got back to Amestris, how in the world would he get back again to retrieve his brother if Diana couldn't hold the door? Al began to walk himself in a circle. He had to calm down, he had to think on his feet, and he had to act in the now; there were too many divergent futures to approximate multiple choices based on a mountain of unknowns.

What was he trying to do?

Al's finger flew out again, "How'd that get there?" he pointed at the transmutation circle, "and why is it there?" The youngest Elric grabbed all of his thoughts tightly and threw them out before his mind's eye, "I need something from beyond the Gate that would reach for the open Gate, that could send something to the open Gate like this – what do I know about the world beyond the Gate that can send something to the doors?"

Brigitte's rebound transmutation circle could do that.

Alphonse thought up that sigil with an abundance of fear in his heart. The inherent rebound in Brigitte's photographed transmutation circle would be the strongest thing beyond the Gate that he knew about to connect back to the doors. If he looked at it from a design perspective, as opposed to an alchemy perspective, the circle was designed to throw information at the open Gate to compensate for an incomplete transmutation. A reaction beyond the Gate wouldn't be able to do that if the doors were closed, since that world would have no way of accessing the Gate at all - they needed to be opened first in order to draw any kind of power. How would one transmutation circle 'throw' another to the Gate like this?

"Wait a minute."

Alphonse drilled his thoughts through the design perspective of everything available to him from beyond the Gate.

"Brigitte's rebound circle was a permanent marking engraved in stone… which means it'll always reach for the Gate if it senses the power at the doors," Alphonse's brow rose and the light glow in his golden eyes brightened, "so if you superimpose something…"

A single eye narrowed at Ed's sigil upon the Gate.

The young man's arms dropped limp to his side, his jaw fell slack, and the boy gave his brother's transmutation circle his most astounded stare. Had his genius older brother just hopped a transmutation off of the rebound and let the broken circle toss his sigil against the backside of the Gate? The rebound must have thrown Ed's transmutation circle against the backside of the Gate like a child flinging mud on a window. What an absolutely astounding feat.

Withholding praise until he'd worked it through, Al needed to figure out two things: one, the power needed to initiate the transmutation would be very minimal, so where did it come from? Two, the circle needed to be activated in some way – what had he done to activate it? Better yet, Alphonse wanted to know how his brother had managed to activate it and not wound up with something like a gust of wind blowing through instead. Something was wrong with the transmutation because it left the sigil slapped onto the Gate and no alchemical reaction had taken place.

"Maybe because the doors are open, that rebound is able to pull some kind of energy runoff, but not enough to do anything. It is possible to swim upstream if you try hard enough," Alphonse narrowed his eyes and thought aloud.

If the young alchemist accepted a theory that there was a very minimal amount of power reversal, what was the trigger? An alchemist needs his mind, body, and soul to be linked in order to perform a transmutation, so how would a broken alchemist half-ass one like this? Alphonse looked around the reddened horizons on his side of the Gate then looked down to his feet submerged within a substance. Al was trying desperately hard to tell himself that he could not _possibly_ be sinking into a sea of blood.

His heart suddenly dropped like a rock into the pit of his stomach as he looked out into the reddening world. Amidst the crimson sea Alphonse watched the memory of two young Elric brothers each take a knife and slit their fingers, offering drops of blood to the transmutation of their mother – components for the soul.

* * *

Ed picked up the hammer Winry had discarded and extended his left leg to his side. What remained of the leg Winry had constructed had been transformed into a long peg leg and Ed hopped up into a crouch on his right leg and rose up to stand. His focus trained in on the area farthest away in the hall – three thick wooden doors existed deep in the complex, each with a heavy lock on it; at least one of the doors went deeper than all the others. Ed made his way to one of the doors, moving with an odd step-and-clunk on the shortened left peg leg. He knocked on the first door, then made his way to the next, trying to gauge the depths of the hollow sound each wooden plug provided.

Winry watched as Edward found a door of interest and began to attempt to break off the lock with her hammer, remaining silent as he fought with it. With a deep breath, Winry pulled to her hands and knees, crawling to the edge of the circle and cautiously picking up the firearm Adolf left behind. She turned it around in her hand before popping open the bullet chamber, eyeing the two bullets that remained.

With a frustrated roar, Ed smashed the hammer down against the lock and continued to find no success. He threw the hammer aside and looked back to the circle, brow rising as Winry snapped the weapon back together and turned it over in her hands again.

"They're a bunch of idiots for leaving a loaded weapon behind," Ed called out, making his way back to the circle. Coming in next to Winry, he dropped down to his right knee heavily, though Ed made sure he was careful when he took the revolver out of her grasp. Ed looked over to the dark stairwell as he tucked the firearm into the waistband of his pants at his lower back.

Winry washed her cold hands over her face, breathing deep, trying desperately to hold back the panicked chord ringing out in her voice, "How do we get out of here?"

"We can't go upstairs, but there should be a tunnel out of here," Ed looked to the sealed doors, "this is an occult society and Germany is only a few years removed from the war. There should be an escape tunnel we can get out through down here," he spoke unequivocally, "I'll find it," and he had to find it quickly.

Edward watched Winry's focus on his statement drift away and fall to the floor. Her cold fingers settled along the lines of the circle, catching fragments of white chalk and red blood.

"I wish this thing could work so we could go home…"

Ed sat on his right knee for a moment, looking at Winry's downcast gaze examine the floor along with her hand; he'd lost track of the number of times he'd wished _something _would work so they could get home. Ed reached out and carefully lifted Winry's fingers from the grooves in the stone, watching them curl around his hand. "You don't want this thing to get us home, Win," the thought of being alchemically deconstructed, even if they would supposedly be reconstructed at a later point, was astoundingly dangerous, profoundly terrifying, and couldn't possibly feel good.

Ultimately, all Edward Elric had wanted to do was return home and see his younger brother again; that was where he had started out, but not where he was ending up. It was a struggle to survive let alone find a way to get home, and now Ed was in danger of losing a whole lot more than just himself. Ed looked into a pair of pure blue eyes that this world was trying to crush, ravage, and destroy; so many unimportant words had come out of his mouth over time that the important once never really found his their way. He'd never wanted so badly for someone to believe the poor things he had to say.

"I promise I'll get us out of here. I'll take care of you... better than this, I promise. Then I'll get you home to Rizembool, I'll get us home to everyone; to see Al, see your grandmother, see everyone… I promise I'll get us home, just not from here."

Potential success in that task hinged on the waning belief in himself amidst a world falling apart around him, making the few short seconds Winry stared back at him before squeezing that hand and answering absolute agony.

"Okay."

In a single motion, Ed swung back and perched on his right leg, sending himself abruptly to his feet with a deep and determined scowl; a sharp breath was released from his mouth sending his bangs flying. The bottom of Ed's right shoe scraped on the floor and the wooden left peg clunked along with each step. Ed stopped and looked at his choices of escape, pulling the revolver from his belt. The door on the left had the most hollow sound and, if memory served right, that was the door he'd gone through when he'd first found Winry curled up and terrified of the reality she'd have to face.

He took a glance back to Winry on the floor, hearing her move. Ed watched from the corners of his eye as Winry collected the wounded doll from the ground, sweeping up the white stuffing that began to fall away as she moved it, placing the beleaguered trinket down on his chalk transmutation circle. Ed breathed deeply and ran the sleeve of his coat through his face.

Sharply, Edward's arm ripped up and he pointed the weapon strong and straight, his thumb setting the hammer, and he trained his sights on the lock sealing the door.

"Ed! What are you doing?" Winry called out, "They're going to hear that!"

A dark golden brow fell as far as it would go, eyes trained on a target, jaw became firm, shoulders strengthened, and the light tremble of tension inexplicably vanished for the only moment he needed it to; Ed narrowed an eye, "I'm saving you."

He shot the lock off the door.

* * *

It would be impossible to attach the mind, improbable to break down flesh and attach a body, but the soul of man was heavily intertwined with his blood. Add that to a transmutation this unpredictable and who knows what might happen. Alphonse's hands scratched over his face. Did that mean his brother was still _there? _He was standing there… spreading blood over his transmutation circle? Al looked around the Gate space frantically – why the hell was there SO MUCH here? One person couldn't possibly cause all this. His attention snapped back to the Gate; actually, he didn't care about the ocean of blood anymore. There was a message coming through the Gate from his brother and Al didn't know what he was supposed to do with it.

Al ran with the assumption that his brother was trying to get someone at home to know that he was there, so how was his younger brother supposed to reach in and get him? He couldn't just step through and grab him, Al had already stuck most of his body through the Gate and there was nothing but black. How was he supposed to get his brother to the Gate?

Alphonse Elric so dearly hated how things kept falling back to Brigitte's defective transmutation circle, and this time the young man realized the disastrous symbol honestly did have a purpose.

Edward's sigil embedded on the Gate would link back to the rebound in the hall, as long as his brother stood on or near the circle feeding it the ingredients of the soul, Alphonse would have a link to the other side of the Gate. He had a link to his brother and that made his heart race. Because he had a link to the transmutation circle, if Al could figure out how to reverse the flow of energy at the Gate, he could turn on the core transmutation.

Al shuddered; he could activate the rebound circle.

He could activate a transmutation that would completely deconstruct his brother right down to the very fibre of his being as the transmutation frantically devoured everything it could touch for power and then slingshot him to the Gate's open doors. Alphonse would then be responsible for safely putting the pieces back together once the rebound released him to the Gate. That was terrifying. And it wasn't that Al didn't think he could do it; the Gate would be handing him all three parts on a silver platter, all he would have to do would be connect A, B, and C together. That task wouldn't be hard.

But…

To put someone… _anyone _through that… the thought alone was going to give him nightmares. Al stepped back from the Gate – there had to be another way.

* * *

Winry winced at the sound of a second gunshot echoing from the depths of the open tunnel, hearing a heavy metallic clank and then the unmistakable step-clunk of Ed's unbalanced movement. From beyond the dark doorway, Ed re-emerged, hobbling over to Winry, "Found it!"

"Do you know how far we have to go?" Winry looked up, reaching to take Ed's hand, only to have him grab hold beneath her arm and find the strength to hoist her onto her feet in one motion.

"No, but as long as we keep moving forward, they'll still be behind us," Ed's arm slipped behind Winry's back while she grappled and fumbled with a poor display of balance on her good leg, "are you doing okay?"

"This hurts like hell," Winry grit her teeth.

Ed's eyes slipped down to his foot and peg leg, shifting his balance between one limb and the next, "How strong did you build this leg, Win?"

Her brow dipped at the question, "I don't make shitty products."

With the pull of his arm, Ed drew Winry behind him, "Get on my back."

Winry grabbed tight at Ed's shoulder, hopping around and firmly gripping the back of his coat. Winry gave a tug on her coat to pull it up and let Ed's hand reach back and grab her left knee, the wounded leg hang from his grasp. With a few awkward steps and bounces Winry jumped to get onto his back, wrapping her arms around Ed's neck and her right leg wrapping around Ed's stomach to balance against his missing arm. Before they'd been able to move next and before they finally took their escape, both Ed and Winry hit a simultaneous realization and Winry felt Ed's posture collapse just a touch beneath her weight.

They stared back at the ruined doll laying on the floor, its stuffing falling out from the exposed bullet hole in the lower part of its face, stained with the blood it had picked up from the ground, and dusted by remnants of the chalk.

* * *

What other way was there to find?

Who knew much longer Edward Elric would stand in one identifiable spot that Alphonse Elric _could not see _and had no potential hope of seeing beyond the Gate. If the older brother finally moved, what would become of the younger brother once the Gate was allowed to return to normal? Would he be taken through the Gate or something worse? If Al managed to escape, how in the world would he get back to the Gate and reclaim his brother without Diana? He couldn't even use the Philosopher's Stone, because he would certainly react to it again.

"Dammit…" Al's hands slapped to his forehead, cutting through his hair harshly, soon escaping his head and slowly coming down to his sides. He had to make a decision, and make one now.

"How do I send a reverse charge through the Gate?"

Just saying it aloud was terrifying enough, but how on earth would he accomplish something like that?

What did he know about drawing power from the Gate? An alchemist draws a circle and it mediates the power for the alchemist to control – a transmutation occurs. His teacher, his brother, and Dante could all clap and pull the power into their hands, using their body as the circle, and cause a transmutation to occur.

But he had nothing to draw with and the surfaces he could write on didn't hold any kind of form.

Al looked at his hands.

He was standing at the Gate, wasn't he?

* * *

"It's okay," Winry said quietly, "it can stay with your transmutation circle."

"You know…" Ed began hesitantly, shifting a little to adjust Winry on his back, "when I was a kid staying with Shou Tucker," after the events in Rizembool ,but still before the silver watch was his; after he'd first met the sweetest little girl in braided pigtails with the biggest dog, but before her father ravaged the innocent child's life; when there was still fragments innocence left, "I drew that circle in the snow for Nina."

Both sets of eyes looked over the impotent white lines of chalk Edward had drawn when they'd arrived, now smeared but unbroken, stained with dabs of crimson like everything else, holding the ruined replica doll that had first been created by the circle it lay on.

"She asked me what it was," it had been a transmutation circle: an alchemists tool to take matter, break it down, and reconstruct it as another object of the same mass, "and I told her it was a charm that made wishes come true."

Beneath the afternoon sun falling in from overhead, putting deep shadows in the room and little else, Winry's weight on Ed's back collapsed against him and her arms tightened strongly around his neck as Ed pulled his focus over to their exit.

"Heh..."

* * *

Alphonse Elric clapped his hands and tried something he was almost certain Dante would never have been brazen enough to attempt. As his hands separated, the sharp blue sparks of the raw transmutation power initiated so close to the source of the Gate stood the hairs on his arm on end.

"One way or another…"

His fingers splayed as the palms of Al's hands turned to face the black Gate and the younger brother's brow came crashing down. The human voice rang out like words bellowed from a massive suit of armour.

"I'll bring you back!"

Alphonse sunk his empowered touch into the stubborn black Gate.

* * *

Two existences lost in another life watched the extraordinary instance of a glitch in time. The blood from Winry's leg and even the traces that had dripped from Edward's face seeped cleanly into the veins of the transmutation circle, as though it had never begun to dry. Residue ran off their flesh, it was extracted from their clothes, and all the spilt crimson gathered in the sigil's veins.

It lit like an electric, angry, and hungry red serpent roaring to life.

Winry clung to Ed, feeling his hand grip tightly around her knee. Ed only managed to take one step to the side before no further movement became possible amidst the flailing red energy, both Edward and Winry becoming ensnared within the raging power of the active alchemical rebound.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

LJ mirror +1 sketch ( http : / yuuki . livejournal . com / 116786 . html )

**A/N:**

I request not to be killed just yet 8D;

I did some post-edits once I got things back from AmunRa, mostly for Al earlier on. Any and all errors are all my fault! (Edit: Thanks to Ishite for catching some for me!)

I don't recall if the English line was the same, but from my Japanese DVDs Ed's line to Nina regarding the circle was "make wishes come true".

Al, you did a good job figuring things out. Good for you. Maybe there was a touch more to your father's eyes than you'll ever realize.

The transmutation circle was inadvertently activated with Winry's blood once she was shot.

Diana had a very limited lifespan for the way Dante created and used her. Her 'death' was inevitable.

I don't think anybody wants to know what would have happened if the 'company upstairs' came down to entertain Ed and Winry.

Al doesn't know Winry is beyond the Gate. _Nobody _knows Winry is beyond the Gate other than Ed – Dante thinks she's 'killed' Winry like she off'd Hohenheim (except Dante doesn't realize her actions sent Hohenheim beyond the Gate – something only Al knows).

All of Hess/Envy's 'nose-in-their-business' actions and involvements between Ed and Winry since Hohenheim's death was Envy trying to determine Winry's 'value' to Ed (or to encourage a higher value, or to raise Ed's awareness of the value) so he could get maximum results when he threatened Ed with Winry's safety.

Envy was betting on Ed doing exactly what he did – find some way out and try to escape, and then Envy would hunt them down.

And last but not least, on a completely personal note, I started this fic in my first semester of college many years ago, and now I've been accepted to go BACK to school in September! I'll be an Animation major at Sheridan :D writing my own stories, designing my own characters, and animating them for the next four years! I think that'll be awesome XD someday I'll be in a credit roll, YAY.


	40. The Crimson Charm Part 3

_I saw it. _

_I got to see what was beyond the Gate. _

_I saw the world, the country, the people, their knowledge, their lives, and their deaths. I saw everything that there was to see at that moment on January 25, 1922 – a date five and a half years into somebody else's future. I could have looked all sorts of ways, forwards or backwards through time, I knew I had those options, all I had to do was think of what I wanted... but I couldn't have told you how I knew I could do it. _

_My starting point was this date for a reason, this was the date I answered the only call that had made it home. So, I went to the starting and ending point of this world and I saw my brother, and I saw Winry who shouldn't have been there at all. It was her life and her blood that had triggered the crimson leak through the Gate – what I'd stood in was the shoreline of all the blood spilt by the dead souls used from the other world for our transmutations. I don't know why I knew that. I know the explanation for why and how that works and to me it makes sense, but it would be really hard to put into words to tell someone else. It was part of the knowledge I had for a brief period of time._

_Even though they couldn't hear me unless I actually stepped through the Gate, I told Winry and my brother I'd help get them home. _

_I activated the transmutation circle. _

_Then the Gate told me I had to leave its space – it told me without words yet somehow it made sure I knew. I told it no, I wanted to see my family come home, but the Gate told me I couldn't. It overwhelmed me while I tried to hold on, forcing me to sleep, and sent me away to Dante's ballroom. The Gate was able to do that to me because my arms were still inside of it._

_I still managed to bring my brother closer to home than he'd ever been before. I made sure the journey was as safe as it could be. I brought my brother and Winry to the other side of the Gate and watched as the rebound forced the Gate to reconstruct them before I had to go._

_I'm not afraid that I've lost anything because Gate wouldn't allow my family to leave with me. I trust and believe whole-heartedly that, after everything that's happened to us, if my brother has managed to come this far, he'll find a way to make a path all the way home. _

**Part XL – Chapter 91 – The Crimson Charm, Part 3 (of 3)**

The side of the Gate where Alphonse had unwillingly frequented, where Izumi feared going, and where Dante wanted to play God was a world submerged in light. It was a place with endless light and a bright vastness that stretched on forever without depth, width, or height. Yet this seemingly peaceful white space had a nightmare at its centre, and it was almost impossible to get to.

The opposite was true of the reverse side of the Gate. It was a world submerged in darkness that went on forever – a dark pool of dead souls waiting to be used by alchemists as fuel for transmutations. Yet, this other side had something bright and desirable at its centre, and it was a place that every soul in the other world would journey to once their life had ended.

As far as Ed was concerned, the light that came from the other side of the open Gate was as good as any glorified after-life. Home was not utopia, was not a perfect place to be, and was not even all that great sometimes, but it was exactly what Ed wanted. He'd recognized the light of the Gate in his first journey home years ago, but for this second trip the light had vanished before he'd arrived.

Whoever had run the terrifying transmutation to bring them this far had not been able to hold the doors open any longer.

When Edward finally opened his eyes again there was as little to see as there was to hear; the world was pitch black. Ed lay on his side, body sore, and he slowly realized he felt sick to his stomach. Edward tried to move and his body responded erratically, so he lay on the ground silently like everything else around him.

There was some poor resemblance of a memory in Ed's mind that looked like himself and Winry standing on the Thule hall floor when the circle activated. The current had hit him with more ferocity than his pounding heart could manage and Ed had thought his body might burst. His mind had begged for it to stop, but he'd passed out shortly after it started and thanked everything in the world that he had.

Ed tried again to pick himself up from the ground and nausea hit him the moment he moved; Ed's hand came to his chest to force it down. With a deep, exhausted breath, Ed put his hands to the surface he lay on, ordered his muscles to function, and pushed himself to his hands and knees.

Edward's heart stopped. Wait. _Wait._

"WHAT?" the rip of his shrill voice was swallowed instantly by the darkness.

Wide golden eyes stared disbelievingly down at two hands and two arms holding his chest off the ground, jaw quivering as words struggled to find his voice.

"Wh-what the hell is this?"

A sudden wave of dizziness struck him from nowhere and Ed was forced back to the dark surface; the muscles in his forearms and shoulders quaked so hard they were useless. Ed's forehead pushed into the black surface he was on, trying to shake the nausea. He clenched his hands as he tried to figure things out and then Edward_ stretched his left leg_.

What was this all about? Why? The limbs were numb and felt no sensation of any kind; he likened it to AutoMail but without the weight of metal.

This ridiculous game the Gate played with his body depending on if he was 'coming' or 'going' was getting frustrating – why in the world would he once again wake up after some insane transmutation and be _whole _again? The rebound would have broken him down and half-heartedly sent his deconstructed remains to the Gate – there was no catch in that to put him back together like this. In fact, it was the Gate that was responsible for putting him back together, because his remains needed to be extracted from the energy stream and there was no way this vicious monstrosity would voluntarily give him back his limbs.

Ed forced himself to think – something must have happened with the re-transmutation the Gate had performed, but what? Both he and Winry would have…

A sudden realization caused Ed to shelve the questions for his limbs – some thing else became far more important. A flurry of golden hair flew out and wide golden eyes slashed through darkness; the trembling assault from Ed's body was ignored.

"WINRY?"

Panic turned Ed over his shoulder in search of colour amongst the black. A body lay behind him, back towards him, curled up like an infant, blonde hair scattered everywhere. On unsteady hands and knees Ed stumbled to Winry, putting a hand to her shoulder and another to the back of her head as he nervously rolled the curled figure onto her back. Winry didn't respond to the movement and lay motionless in the dark. Edward's hand went to her neck and another rested on her chest, frantically searching for signs of life. When he found Winry's pulse and Ed realized that she was breathing, he sagged a little in relief.

The eldest Elric brother had to say he absolutely detested the alchemy Gate by this point in his life, because while Edward sat on two knees and moved Winry with two hands, the bullet wounds marring Winry's leg were still there. Ed eyed the scarf that had unwound from around Winry's leg and it took his unsettled nerves a few minutes to re-do it.

Ed glanced to the pile of supplies and things that had been on the transmutation circle and had followed them through the Gate before drawing up onto hands and knees. Ed leaned over Winry, putting a hand down on her cheek, tapping it lightly to see if she'd wake, "Hey… hey come on. I need you to wake up."

It wasn't Winry that Edward woke.

Slowly, one by one, sets of eyes began to appear in the black void; leering, lecherous, devious, _hungry,_ purple sets of eyes.

"Oh great…"

Fear hit the bottom of Edward's stomach like a boulder crashing into a canyon. For what he could manage with so many wayward nerves, Ed's shoulders stiffened and he held his ground over Winry. Air was forced through Ed's nose as he watched interested purple eyes endlessly appear, littering every angle of this monstrous black space with malicious gazes. Slowly, Ed slipped one arm behind Winry's shoulders and the other behind her head to he sit her up – golden eyes ordering all of the purple gazes to stay back as he put Winry's forehead down on his shoulder.

More sets of intrusive eyes appeared, prying in from above, below, behind… in all the places Ed was not looking.

"What the hell are you assholes staring at!" Edward suddenly yelled, fraying quickly around his edges at the invasive presence. It was _very _obvious these eyes were visually dissecting them both and few things in any world frightened Edward Elric like the eyes of the Gate did. He clenched his hands to fight the mounting tension.

Winry gasped – a sound that came from seemingly nowhere. It wasn't a normal sound for a gasp for air, it sounded more like a man's final gulp before drowning.

"I can't breathe!" she choked, eyes flying wide and pupils at pinpoints, breaking out of Ed's grasp as her hands reached for her neck, "I can't breathe!"

Ed scrambled to settle the nerves Winry's outburst had frayed and he quickly took Winry's fingers away from where they had begun to claw at her neck, "It's okay, you're breathing just fine."

"But there—" the panic-stricken girl took a breath that told her she was wrong. She took a second breath that confirmed it. Reality sunk in and Winry slowly sat back onto her knees, her jaw loose, trying to piece together her chaotic thoughts, wide eyes drawing in the scene around her of a black space loaded with invasive purple eyes, "… Wha… what?"

Ed's hands landed at her ears, settling high on her jaw, pulling her focus forwards to him, "You're okay."

There were no words in the world that anyone could have spoken to express how thankful Ed was for that. He'd revel in the feeling if there wasn't a whole new set of problems literally looking at him.

"What is this?" Winry's exhausted question contained more air than sound, the terrified look in her eyes painfully obvious, "where are we?"

"We're at the Gate," Ed answered, an uncharacteristic tremor to his voice. He didn't know who had done it and he didn't care.

The world sat on pause as the situation sunk in, nothing beyond air breathed and heartbeats spent gave any indication that sound existed in this space. Ed watched while Winry's eyes slowly widened again and she abruptly stopped throwing her attention around the space at the Gate. The girl's focus captured Ed and his left hand felt all the tension in her jaw vanish. Gold eyes witnessed the flabbergasted emotions in the blue gaze staring back at him begin to swell as Winry's hands rose up, gripping the two wrists at her face and pulling them away.

Of all the times and places Winry could have chosen to give Edward such an astounded look and it had to be this one, at the Gate, and it made him smile.

"It's numb," Ed said of the right wrist Winry turned over in her hand, flexing his fingers for her, "I can't feel anything in it."

Edward was usually the one stricken with tongue-tied responses, so it was somewhat relieving to watch Winry struggle to bring her voice out, "But… but how did you…?"

"Um…" Ed paused, wondering how to give an easy interim answer until he did actually theorize a reason for why. Ed didn't know why the Gate had taken his limbs in the first place, since the offer for Alphonse's transmutation was an all-or-nothing transaction. The consolation answer beyond the Gate had boiled down to something unscientific simple like: the Gate simply didn't like him and had taken back what Al had given him out of spite.

"I, uh, think I caused the Gate to malfunction."

An answer that became his most unscientific response to date.

"Oh," Winry did nothing more than sit and stare at the hand she held, her thumb running through Ed's palm slowly, watching how the pressure she placed moved each finger, "about time it screwed up in your favour."

* * *

Amidst Central City's late afternoon sun, Brigadier General Mustang stood back and admired the new accommodations Havoc and Hawkeye had commandeered. It was _actually_ a hotel – Mustang was quite impressed. The last building they'd set up shop in had been a half-occupied office and the commanding officer was more than happy to have a proper bed to sleep in again. When they'd first walked through the front doors, Mustang figured out quite quickly that Havoc must have charmed his way in to see the manager or the owner through the two lovely 20-somethings standing at the check-in. He took a mental note to talk with them later.

The change of scenery was a welcome sight after an earthquake had struck Central that morning and driven everyone from their last place of operation when the building had threatened to crumble down on them. Mustang had never experienced the earth shake beneath his feet before – no one in Central had. It was a strangely powerful occurrence that made everyone utterly powerless for the minute or two that it had lasted. On the whole, the city had held up pretty well structurally against the earthquake, though he couldn't say the same for the mindset of the people. It was unfortunate that Mustang's last point of conquest was in the eastern quarter, because that was the oldest part of the city and it took some of the worst damage – mostly emphasized by the mess Old Central had been turned into. The historical district had the unfortunate fate of being in the farthest reaches of the damaged eastern quarter.

Mustang wouldn't acknowledge the fact that they'd lost track of Wrath in the chaos, but frankly he didn't care. Maybe the annoying little twerp was trapped beneath some fallen building – Mustang was okay with that thought. For the brief time he'd had Izumi around, the forthright woman had given him just enough information to be useful before Mustang had lost her again; she'd ran off into the city to help people dig out from the wreckage. Mustang figured that just meant he didn't have to let her berate him about losing the little homunculus.

In the new hotel, the first knowledgeable person Mustang encountered was kind enough to point him towards a room on the third floor. What Mustang found up there was a plain room, nothing fancy or even remotely close to the kind of place officers of his rank were normally given – though it beat living in an office hands down. It had a single queen bed, a night stand, a dresser, a lamp that was lit, two chairs, and a table. Mustang ignored the call of the bed, flipped the deadbolt on his door, and took a long shower instead.

Some point in time after the shower had ended and Roy had passed out on the lovely, _lovely _bed wearing only a towel, a knock came to his door. Since the commanding officer was too deep in slumber to hear it, a key was inserted and rattled around noisily, as though to make sure any prying ears were aware that no one was breaking in.

"Sir?"

Roy didn't hear Riza's voice. He didn't hear a whole lot of anything until Riza threw his damp dress shirt over his chest – the man had been wearing it for days and it got washed in the shower along with everything else. Roy shivered and was unwillingly taken away from his sleep.

"You have a phone call," she sounded far more gentle than she normally did.

"Take a message," Roy grabbed one of the pillows his head wasn't on and stuck it over his face, wrapping his arms around it to hold it down.

"Mr Tlingum sounds a little desperate to talk to you."

The last time Russell had called with information the twerp had tried to tell Mustang he had to pay for it. Roy swore to everything he believed in that if what this kid had to say wasn't incredible enough to win him the entire city of Central he would personally march in on Xenotime just to ring Russell Tlingum's neck.

"Fine," the pillow was thrown aside, the damp shirt was snatched up, and Riza exited the room to let her superior officer get dressed in his damp attire with some dignity.

When Mustang had emerged from the room, he did so with a yawn and followed Hawkeye blindly down the stairs. They didn't take to the rotunda or the main floor of hotel room doors. Instead, they slipped down a corridor behind the staircase and into a quaint little hall that had five rooms with A1 through A5 marked on the doors.

The door to A3 burst open almost immediately, startling both officers.

"Sir!" Feury called, "I'm so glad you're here, I was worried I'd have to tell them to call back again."

Mustang kind of wished Feury had, "Thank you, Sergeant."

Stepping into the room, Mustang came to realize that this was not a hotel room – it was a conference room.

The white room with beige patterned curtains had a square table with eight chairs, two to each side, a desk with a wheeled chair, and a steno, dip pen, and a pile of paper stacked thick enough that he wouldn't be able to one-hand it out the window. Mustang cringed; he hated paperwork – how did a plague of paperwork manage to follow him around even in a government overthrow? There were wires and cords that snaked through a hole drilled into the neighbouring room; the hole was fresh because the dust was still caught in the baseboards. A telephone sat on the desk, the receiver on off the cradle and resting on the wooden veneer.

With a deep breath and a tired scowl, Mustang marched over and snatched up the phone up.

"What do you want?" he gave his greeting.

"_It's about time you answered me!"_ Russell chirped into the phone, "_I was worried the earthquake scrambled your brains out there a bit too much._"

Mustang was a few poorly chosen words away from hanging up on the teenager, "You have ten seconds to make this conversation worth my while."

"_Have you checked on Old Central yet?_"

That was not what Mustang was expecting to hear –Russell Tlingum was a fountain of information on red water, red stones, and other bullshit that came out of Xenotime.

"… Why?"

"_We need you to check on Old Central and make sure it's not damaged at all._"

Mustang's tired thoughts continued to be stuck on 'why' – he glanced to the clock to find out it was almost 10pm. Even if the officer felt like it, he was not going into Old Central after dark, "Old Central took the quake the hardest. There's a lot of damage in there Mr Tlingum, so I don't need to go gallivanting out there to tell you that whatever you want from there is probably damaged."

The mouthpiece came away from Russell,'s mouth though Mustang could still hear bits of the conversation. The teenager told whoever was listening that Old Central was damaged, and then asked what they should do. A female voice answered, but it was too faint and distorted for Mustang to hear clearly. He pushed the earpiece tight against his ear, trying to pick up the entirety of the conversation, then had to pull it away quickly when Russell's voice came back loudly to the phone.

"_We're going to give you directions to a building in Old Central – you need to make sure it's not damaged and seal it off if it is._"

Oh, Mustang dearly wished this boy was standing in front of him so he could strangle the 'why' out of him, "Why, Mr Tlingum? And who's 'we'?"

"_Me and Roze."_

There was that name of the woman from Lior again; Roze'd given them all nightmares from the story she'd told of a woman who tried to seduce her with alchemy and then followed that up with stories of a city that once existed. He wasn't sure if 'Roze' fascinated or frightened him.

"_There's a um… church Roze paid homage to in Old Central when she was still the Holy Mother of Lior. It's in the heart of the district, just off the main road. It's the oldest thing there, it towers over everything and all the windows are stained glass designs – you can't miss it. It's sacred and important. It has something that nobody should want… we need you to make sure that it's still intact."_

"And if it's not?" Mustang asked.

A long pause came before Russell gave an answer, "_Burn it down and bury it in dirt before you leave._"

"Why?" the brigadier general would not let that go.

"_You're gonna have to trust us on this one, you don't want to know why. But it needs to be done._"

Mustang's good eye twitched - even the defective one beneath the eye patch twitched. Maybe he'd break the phone instead since Russell wasn't handy to strangle, "You're going to have to do better than that."

"_Show a little faith in us out here Mister Brigadier General and we'll talk about it more later."_

The phone line went dead. Mustang had a nearly uncontrollable urge to just rage on the poor telephone. He hated how cryptic everyone was with him about 'important' things he knew nothing about. It made him feel like a pawn and Roy Mustang was so sick of being people's pawn – it was on the list of reasons _why _he was taking over Central City. He threw the phone down in disgust and stormed out of the room.

* * *

"This is the other side of the Gate…?" Winry sat back and looked around once more, "I don't see a gate." She didn't see anything other than the prying eyes and their collection of things.

"I don't know what's wrong," even if Ed couldn't exactly remember it, he knew he'd been here before and there had been Gate doors to push through.

Ed questioned his knowledge of the Gate – something wasn't right, there had to be some reason the doors wouldn't appear. Something had to be different from before. Edward's brow slowly stitched together; the last time he'd been here, albeit briefly, his host body beyond the Gate had died and his actual mind and body had waited for him at the doors, detached from the journey his soul had taken. Ed's soul connected with his remains and he'd pushed his way back into Dante's ballroom. This time around, the whole of Edward Elric had been sent beyond the Gate with nothing left at the doors, and now he was attempting to return.

The seam through Ed's forehead was cut and his brow rose, "I'm gonna have to make the doors appear."

"What?" Winry found it difficult to distract herself from all the prying eyes visually suffocating them, "how?"

Ed's face twisted with a thought and he looked to Winry, a grin flooding life back into his face, "Heh."

"What?" under any other circumstance Winry wouldn't have been as concerned as she was for the look he gave her right then and there.

The grin didn't leave but Ed still gave a disgruntled shrug of his shoulders and a thoughtful 'hmph' while his hands came up and unbuttoned the top four buttons of his dress shirt. Ed flared it open with a swift tug on the collar.

"What are you doing…?" a deep alarm began to ring in Winry's voice.

Ed glanced to the pile of things that had come with them in the rebound, "You took that foot off with cutters, right?"

"… Why?"

"Hang on."

Ed rose to his feet and stepped away from Winry, moving swiftly through the darkness. He easily uncovered Winry's cutters amongst the mess and Ed snatched the tool up emphatically, catching it in his left hand. Golden Elric eyes looked between the two hands he had available, the worn left hand that had helped him on his own for so long and the new right one that still gave Ed no feedback that it even existed. For all he knew it was a loaner and he wouldn't get to keep it when he finally got home.

So… since there was no feeling in it…

Ed flipped open the cutters and placed the sharp tip of the tool down into his right palm, clamped his hand around the tool and swiftly tore it out of his own grasp, slicing his hand open.

"ED," Winry squawked, "what are you _doing?_"

The eldest of two impulsive brothers dropped the cutters, held his numb right hand out like a cup, and let the blood from the cut pool in his hand. Ed gave a nod to the blood forming, glad to know that his right arm was attached to his circulatory system at least. With the thick red liquid available, Ed dipped his left pinky finger into his right palm and took the finger to his chest.

"EDWARD ELRIC, what the hell are you doing!" Winry scrambled forwards on her hands and knees, "STOP. STOP RIGHT NOW."

The drawing on his chest was finished before Winry arrived and Ed knelt down to meet her – spilling his hand and wiping off his palm on his pants before grabbing Winry's wrists as she reached out to beat the image off of him.

"Let go of me! What are you doing?" The panic in her voice tightened the tension in Ed's shoulders but didn't cause him to let go.

"Win… remember I told you once…" his thoughts caused his eyes to glance away while he wondered how to word this, "that a transmutation circle has no direction; as in it has no top, no bottom, no start and no end, because it's constantly flowing with energy. It can never be upside down or right side up. It picks up the material provided and flows within the natural energy of the world," he eyeballed Winry who looked like she was going to tackle him if he didn't let go, "but, when you put a transmutation circle on a life form that already has a flowing circuit, like a circulatory system, it's properties can change, depending on what you want to do and how you draw it. You can establish that up and down, because you can move with or against a natural flow."

Winry gave him a heavy, wary eye, ready do everything in her power to attempt to overwhelm Ed if whatever he was getting at gave her no choice but to stop him.

"An encircled, five-point star, when presented with a single point upwards, can be used to represent symmetry of the human body. Head up top, two arms at the side, two legs at the bottom – never ending and constantly flowing. But, when you turn it and have the two points 'upwards', you invert the connection to the body's systems, go against the flow, and the transmutation's properties change to something else entirely."

Ed watched as Winry stared wordlessly at the symbol drawn on his chest; he'd drawn the same symbol on himself that Dante had drawn on Diana: the encircled 'upside down' pentagram – exactly as he'd just described.

"It connects the 'here to there' _and _the 'there to here'."

"No, no… no…" Winry gave a sharp yank on her arms but it was a futile effort – Ed would not let go, "what does that circle do?"

"Alchemy," Ed narrowed an eye in thought, "when I clap my hands. The Gate had to stitch us back together to bring us here, so I should be able to open the Gate from this side, since this is where all the power is stored."

"Yeah right," Winry glared at him, "what happens to _you_ when you do that?"

"We go home."

"Bullshit," she snapped, not liking that he was so calm and collected over this. Winry again fought to get Ed to release her wrists to no avail, "you have a chronic problem of doing inherently stupid things with alchemy, so you are going to tell me what will happen to you."

"Winry, it's not important," Ed protested, his tone hardening as he held Winry at bay, "I need you to trust me on this one."

Ed was surprised to find she actually did calm once he'd spoken, but he quickly came to realize her relaxed body and fallen shoulders didn't come from calm, they came from resignation. Ed peered in uncertainly, watching Winry's head sag forwards as he gingerly began to return her wrists. He took a breath to speak but Winry shut Ed's voice down when her arms were abruptly snatched from his grasp.

"The last time I trusted you and Al to do the right things for yourselves with alchemy, you did something that meant you would never come back. If the Gate didn't think you were fun to play with, if it just didn't happen to be this way, you'd be dead. We wouldn't be having this conversation."

The weight of the other world's incarceration chains crashed down over Edward's shoulders and they pinned him to the side of the Gate where he sat. How strange it was for Ed to be reminded that he _had _done that, because when he'd woken up alive on the other side he'd been able to negate responsibility for his actions. It had been a long time since he'd had to look at the frame of mind he'd been in that day.

"Winry…"

She looked up at him abruptly.

"You didn't sacrifice yourself for your brother knowing you'd end up in this alternate world and be able to fight to get home. You _sacrificed_ yourself; you did what you did for Al knowing you would die. You decided your life would be over. There'd be no more. You wouldn't come home. Ever. Regardless of who or what it was for, you were okay with being dead and not living anymore."

There wasn't a set of purple eyes in the darkness that could look at Ed and reach in so far, grab hold so hard, and twist so angrily like these blue ones did. The feeling was like a clenched fist that had been lodged in his throat; Ed felt himself choke on it.

"That's great for you, if you're dead you don't have to deal with not having you around anymore! Yeah, what you did gave us Al back and that's a miracle in itself and I cannot… I _cannot _wish that you hadn't done that, because if I did then _Al _would be dead instead. I can't pick your life over Al's or Al's over yours… so I just think what you two did was wrong." Winry's words paused for a moment, the look in her eye imprisoning Edward's ability to put any of his thoughts into the spaces within her statement. "What I see from you isn't always that you think so much of everyone else around you, but that you think so little of yourself in the process. You're the only one who doesn't seem to think you have any value to the people around you and you make yourself dispensable."

There wasn't anything in the world Ed could have done against painful words spoken by a moderately trembling voice that fought on, beyond listen to what they had to say.

"I trust you with a lot of things Edward Elric, but I don't trust you to always make the right decisions for yourself when it comes to alchemy… and that's your fault."

Winry left the verbally crushed feeling as a jagged piece of shrapnel in Ed's throat when her voice let go and he was forced to swallow down no matter how badly it hurt. Uncertain golden eyes fell to the wayside, shoulders collapsing, head bowing, sitting on his knees. Like a weary soldier slumped at the bottom of his biggest hill to climb, Ed looked into the two flesh hands that he opened, palms up, comparing the clean but journey-worn left hand to the bloodied opposing palm.

"I don't regret what I did for Al. I've never looked back and wondered what my other options would have been and I'm not going to. That's my decision and I have to live with that, so I can't ask you to trust me with this," The thing Edward had found about talking with Winry was that, unlike himself, she rarely looked down or away to shield what she was feeling. Winry always looked right at him when she spoke and that somehow managed to make it impossible to doubt her. Ed swallowed hard and picked his head up to look at Winry, "but I don't have any way of telling you how badly I want to go home, be at home, live at home, do everything I do and don't at home, and do all of the things in life that I haven't let myself do because I wasn't home. Right now I know what I _can_ do to get us home like I'd promised – both of us – and I've tried for a long time to get there… so I just… want to go home. Whatever you're afraid of isn't going to happen. Really."

A hesitant pause preceded Winry's quiet voice for her last concern, "Will you be alright?"

"Yes."

Winry's lower lip slipped into her teeth, "Okay then."

Ed pursed his lips and exhaled slowly, rebuilding his posture as he straightened himself, feeling a little short of breath while he spoke, "Your leg doesn't hurt that much here, does it?"

"No," Winry admitted, eyeballing the wrapped damage on her left limb, "it feels kinda gross, and it does hurt, but not like it did."

"That's the Gate – being here is like a blip in time," Ed pulled to his feet, ignoring the intrusive eyes that continued to watch them. He reached down and pulled Winry up to her feet, "It's gonna hurt when we're back."

Winry gave a slow nod as she worked her balance onto the one good leg, holding onto Ed's shoulders as he turned and offered his back for her to climb on to.

"And you'll be pretty nauseous," Ed gave Winry a bounce on his back to settle her in place once she'd wrapped her arms around his neck again, "this isn't going to feel good when we get back… at all. It's probably going to feel like how we're supposed to feel after going through the rebound."

Even though he had two hands this time around, both of them were needed, so Winry wiggled around uncomfortably until her legs wrapped around Ed's waist as best she could, "But we'll be home, right?"

"Yup," Ed nodded.

Winry's arms tightened around his neck and she put her chin down, "Then I'll be fine."

Both weary travellers journeying between this world and that looked around, staring back at the countless sets of eyes that bore down on them. Winry's scowl at their lecherous invasion was tainted with nervous concern but was protected by Edward's glare assaulting whatever dared stand in his way. The hungry eyes hardened at his challenge and Ed chose to offer a cocky, triumphant smirk in return, inviting them to watch and see what he had in store.

This time Ed stood on two good legs with Winry on his back, the idea of running in fear no longer part of the equation. Giving a few sharp shakes of his head to clear it, Ed shifted with Winry on his back, slapped his palms over his thighs, straightened himself up, and threw his hands out to his sides amidst the pitch. His chest expanded with a deep breath and Edward Elric let the prying purple eyes eat his provocative sneer.

"This side of the Gate can KISS MY ASS."

Ed clapped his hands.

* * *

Mustang stood beneath the clear sky and 9am sun, arms folded, brow lowered, and gaze as cross as ever while trying to stare down a church in shambles at the heart of Old Central. He'd found a mess like he'd expected; the church steeple had fallen off, the windows had shattered leaving glass everywhere, and part of the west wall had crumbled down bringing half of the roof with it.

"It's busted," Mustang announced flatly.

"Maybe we should look inside before burning it down and burying it?" Havoc offered, like the idea of desecrating one of the oldest buildings in Central was a little beneath the three of them, "someone might have been inside."

Mustang sighed and relented to the suggestion, though he remained beyond unimpressed with why they'd bothered venturing out in the first place. If _something_ in Russell Tlingum's words hadn't continued to tickle Mustang's curiosity all night long they wouldn't have shown up.

The trio entered through the collapsed side of the building, since the steeple blocked the front doorway, and the three officers stepped around broken glass, fallen chunks of stone and debris as they made their way carefully through the mess. The collapse had taken out half of the wooden seating, a good portion of the front stage, and had buried the centre alter.

"Yeah, this is busted," Havoc conceded.

Hawkeye's hands took hold of one of the pews and with all the strength she had to give, she shoved it aside to open a path down what had once been the centre aisle, "Mr Tlingum didn't give you any reason for this?"

Mustang walked along the aisle beyond the far reaches of undamaged pews, each step he took crunching down on broken glass, his voice as sharp as the shards he walked on, "He just said 'trust me'."

It was a shame that the Tlingum brothers hadn't really given them any reason _not_ to trust them since being drawn into the fray, otherwise Mustang wouldn't have bothered with this journey.

The senior officer made his way up onto the front for the building as Riza pushed aside another pew, stepping around a mangled pile of debris that had once been the front podium.

"Guess we oughtta prep her for the cooker," Havoc gnawed lightly on the end of his unlit cigarette.

When Havoc turned to see if his superior officers had a response for him, he stopped to watch as Mustang crouched down to the floor and peered under the planks of fallen roof.

"Is someone one under there?" Havoc asked.

"No," Mustang grabbed hold of some debris and pulled it out from beneath the layers of roofing, "there's a draft coming out from here."

Both Havoc and Hawkeye exchanged a glance.

"A draft?" Hawkeye questioned – there was no wind today.

"Help me dig," Mustang ordered.

With what little they had to aid their bare hands, improvising with planks of wood to break other planks down, the trio worked diligently over the following half hour in a day that slowly grew hotter the higher the sun rose and the longer they worked. Shirts were loosened and un-tucked, jackets were discarded on the floor, and Havoc even went so far as to pluck his pants out from his boots and roll them up to his knees. With an emphatic grunt, Mustang stood on a stubborn collection of wooden planks, jumping up and snapping it in half beneath his body weight. A portion of the debris shifted, allowing Hawkeye and Havoc to throw it aside while Mustang came down to his hands and knees – finally finding the source of his draft.

There was a vent blowing cool air out from beneath the debris of the collapsed podium that had once been front and centre in the church. Grabbing one of the planks of wood that they'd discarded , the senior officer jammed it into the hole on the floor, jarring it around to widen the vent. Havoc and Hawkeye dusted their hands off and watched the hole crumble open until Mustang made it a good foot-size wide.

All three officers were soon on their hands and knees trying to peer in.

"Where the hell does this go?" Mustang frowned.

"Basement?" Havoc offered.

"I don't think it's normal to get a draft coming up from a basement like this," Hawkeye qualified.

"Okay," Mustang stood up abruptly, searching for the sturdiest plank of wood he could find, "let's force it open as wide as it'll go."

A wooden clatter escaped into the hot day as debris was taken into three sets of hands. The exercise of widening the hole was pretty much a display of how much brute force could be put into their poor digging materials – no one had shown up with anything close to a shovel. The wooden planks were rammed against the edges of the hole, weakening and breaking it down. What was more astonishing than the black hole they were opening was that it was not made of any type of construction material – the hole they opened was made of dirt. All three of them worked at the gaping hole for another twenty minutes, watching in astonishment as the hole continued to widen, exposing the top rung of shallow steps that appeared in the final five minutes of work. When Mustang finally called for an end to their efforts, the officers looked into a dark cavern that they'd opened up wide enough to fit a body through.

They all stood back and stared silently at it, glancing around occasionally to see if anyone had come to investigate their noise.

"I'm going down," Mustang announced – the bubble of excitement in his stomach told him this was what Russell Tlingum had sent them here for and he wanted to know the secret. Suddenly the trip had become worth the effort.

Crouching down on his hands and knees, Mustang slipped into the collapsed hole feet first, sliding along his stomach against the dirt and shallow run of stairs until his shoulders popped through. He shuffled back from the entrance on his hands and knees, feeling the evenly carved stairs in the dirt begin to offer a steeper decent. When the remnants of the collapse had stopped littering the steps, the officer rose to his feet. Mustang stood up straight, realizing there was enough clearance for not only his height, but his arm reach as well. He jumped, reaching above his head and feeling that the cold earth against his fingertips. Despite the uncertainty, Mustang had to admit the cool breeze coming up from below was nice on his sweaty back. The light from the entry way suddenly vanished and the senior officer looked back to see Hawkeye slip through the hole.

"Stay up there," he ordered, his voice echoing off the walls of the tunnel.

"You need back up in case there's trouble down here," Hawkeye answered, slipping her way down to a point in the tunnel where she could stand as well.

Both Mustang and Hawkeye watched as Havoc slid in last, the sounds of his rustling body echoing off the walls.

"You can't leave me behind while you go venturing off into a dark tunnel. Just who do you two spelunkers think you are?" the lieutenant stood up, dusting off his pants.

A pause came to the group while they stood in the breeze of the cavern, letting the cooling air dry the sweat from their brows and backs of their necks before shoulders finally stiffened and expressions tightened. Without a word, the sound of marching feet erupted as they made their decent. When the light of the entrance vanished, Mustang dawned his glove and snapped his fingers to light what little moss graced the walls, each time re-igniting portions of the wall when the previous light had either been lost or had burnt away. The three walked for what felt like forever in silence, and the deeper they descended the stronger the wind became. Their journey downwards became engulfed in the dark when the wind wouldn't allow Mustang to light anything any longer. The wind in the pitch-black tunnel had noise, like the sound of a howling, crying, and dying animal; it was an unruly, inhumane cry that sent chills down their spines.

At the point where the descent into the earth had begun to feel endless a faint light began to fill the tunnel from up ahead. The winds terrorized their clothes and hair, blowing dust and sediment into their faces, forcing all advancing parties to shield their eyes. When the end of the tunnel was bright and clearly seen, weapons found their way into hands. Cautiously, carefully, and slowly the trio of officers emerged from the stairs and into a new light.

The blowing winds ended, like their exit shut an invisible door behind them.

Where the light source so far down into the earth came from was anybody's guess, but the massive cavern the three officers had walked into was brightly lit and exploded open for miles before their eyes. The massive cavern sent nerves into a frenzy, hearts racing, and stomachs churning. Weapons were lowered from their readied positions, shoulders collapsed, and mouths fell open as three officers stood on the dirt ledge looking out into the underground Empty City beneath Central.

"Good god…"

It was a magnificent, overwhelming, and terrifying sight to behold, more than enough to make the strongest knees weak. The three officers stood frozen by horror, standing at this terrifyingly high perch overlooking a kind of sin that had been so unimaginable none of them could have dreamed up the sight no matter how many times Roze's story was replayed.

This was the Empty City – the city Central had once been before it was re-established hundreds of years ago. It was intact and it was standing for all of them to see. Tens of thousands of people – possibly hundreds of thousands of people had once lived here… an entire civilization had once lived here and had vanished in a single night. Entire genealogies were wiped from existence in a selfish massacre caused by two people and their unfathomable mountain of sins.

Havoc's hand cut through his hair, "This… this is _massive_."

"This is a graveyard," the words tumbled out of Mustang's open mouth.

The empty underground city was the skeleton of their nation's worst catastrophe – sealed away in an underground closet and coveted by its keeper. It was a sight that was beyond overwhelming.

"Do you hear that?" Hawkeye forced her quieted voice out amidst the visual nightmare.

Voices were hushed, heartbeats were tamed, and the officers stood listening with ears as wide open as their eyes.

"There's music coming from somewhere," Mustang qualified Hawkeye's question, stating a fact of truth that felt like impossible fiction. He couldn't imagine why, or better yet, _how _the sound of music could be in this-

"Dante's down here," Hawkeye's sidearm was firmly gripped as she derailed her superior's thoughts.

That was the only answer and Mustang re-fitted the glove over his right hand. He hadn't shown up to Old Central with expectations of finding anything remotely close to _this,_ so the matching glove for his other hand had remained at the hotel. Mustang's left hand carried a hand gun instead.

After the burns on her arm had been tended to in the days prior, Izumi had confirmed Dante's newest form was the tiny body of Nina – another flesh trophy for the woman to add to her collection of faces. Strangely, that left Aisa as their biggest mystery, though Dante would remain their biggest obstacle. Mustang was forced to look at his reflection in the mirror and ask himself: if he ever got the opportunity to take on the woman in the body of a _child,_ would he be able to look beyond the physique? He told himself he'd have to. This body-snatching alchemist wasn't an immortal creature – she was a human woman who'd lived hundreds of years through the manipulation of her life and the destruction of countless others. Even as Mustang looked out into the cavern, he couldn't comprehend how one person, or even two people, could be responsible for so many deaths. And it wasn't just this city – there was Ishibal and Lior and who knows what other crimes they hadn't uncovered yet as well. Dante wasn't an alchemist, she was a mass murderer, and she could be shot and killed like any other flesh creature. Mustang glanced between the two best shots he had in the entire nation; if anyone could strike her down…

But this was her turf, not theirs – who knew what this world had in store for them. All of its secrets and mysteries were Dante's to do with as she pleased. A thought of returning to the surface and grabbing backup shot through Mustang's mind, but then who else would he bring? He wasn't going to bring a legion of supporters down into this catastrophe and expose what had been done to the entire world. This city needed to be forgotten and remain forgotten, otherwise the people of Central might never be able to move on. Brigadier General Roy Mustang reached back and snapped his firearm out from its holster.

"Let's find out where it's coming from."

Or at least, find out where in this catacomb Dante had set up her home; it might be their only chance to pin her down. Worst case scenario – they could always come back.

* * *

There were a number of things that unsettled the trio of officers about walking through this empty city, most predominantly was a lack of skeletal remains. Massacres on this scale left bodies behind – but this city had nothing. It was like a ghost town except ghost towns had run-down feelings because they become abandoned over time. This one was up-kept, but its colours had dulled and became buried beneath hundreds of year's worth of dust. Mustang found it very unsettling that his mind kept expecting to find a mountain of bones around 'the next corner' at some point. There weren't even a cob webs to be found.

The empty city beneath Central was nothing more than an underground, oversized, filthy, and forgotten dollhouse and everyone felt on edge as they ventured through it.

Then there were the remnants of a magnificent transmutation circle that looked as though it had once been carved into the cavern ceiling. At least that was something they could all avoid looking at, unlike everything else.

Their journey towards the music pulled them through the dusty city, luring them to somewhere near the centre of town, to a building Mustang could only refer to as 'magnificent' once they'd reached it. It was a gorgeous, ancient building with hand crafted pillars, heavy etched doors to each room, marble flooring everywhere, crystal candlelit chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, and draperies hanging from the walls. Hundreds of years ago, anyone who was anybody must have come here in their finest gowns. Portraits of people who'd been expunged from their history books hung in the halls amongst the fabric art. This monumental building was the only place they'd encountered that had been maintained, which caused heart rates and tensions to rise. Then there was the faint odour to the building that did not exist anywhere else in the city – it was like perfume, only it didn't seem all that pleasant.

Mustang wished for the dust to return, because it dampened the sounds of their feet on the floor and now every step they took had to be more cautious and carefully placed than the last. He also wished for the music to end – it was the same four-minute piece playing over and over and over…

Eyes spoke to each other without the need for words, heads motioned in directions when arms couldn't, and feet slid along the marble surface that waited desperately for one of the officers to miss a step and announce their presence. The entrance to the grand ballroom was obvious; it was etched in gold upon a plaque attached to the door. Rather than force the heavy doors open, the three officers slowly made their way up a wide, winding staircase, taking themselves up to the balcony level of the grand centrepiece. The hall was long, curving around the ballroom, each balcony jetting out over the dance floor from behind a heavy, purple velvet curtain. The officers walked to the end of the hall where the lighting was the dimmest, hoping they'd be able to duck under the curtain and not have anyone notice its movement. Mustang crouched down and made the cautious slip onto the corner balcony.

The music was coming from _somewhere _in the ballroom, but where exactly was unclear. Keeping himself as low to the floor as possible, the officer's good eye cautiously allowed more and more of the wide ballroom floor beyond the balcony rails into his sights. It became more than apparent to Mustang that there was nobody in this ballroom for them to see – no voices and no movement; just the endless music grinding on his nerves.

Mustang squinted, trying to examine a curious sight on the ballroom floor. There was a black transmutation circle that had been drawn, something Mustang had seen maybe once or twice before in Ishibal – he'd never bothered to take note of it. There was a red 'splat' mark at the centre of the room and it smeared along the floor unevenly and eventually vanished into an archway adjacent to the entryway doors and beneath an overhang. All of Mustang's experiences told him that it looked like a bloodied body had been dragged or thrown along the floor by a person not willing, not strong enough, or not big enough to actually pick up their victim. Mustang swallowed and slowly ducked back behind the curtain.

The officers came down from the balcony level without a sound, trying unsuccessfully to tune out the music that wore on them, and headed for the ballroom entrance doors. With gloves on and weapons poised, heartbeats flying and adrenaline pumping, Mustang carefully pushed down on the left door handle, opening up the expansive room to their eyes and flooding their ears with the sound of unwanted music. Without a sound each officer entered the ballroom, weapons readied and eyes flying about, seeing nothing and no one within the ancient hall. They did not emerge from the entrance area, choosing instead to admire the grand hall from a distance and allowing their eyes to follow the smear of dried blood into the archway, watching it vanish into the unlit hallway on their left. None of them knew where that hallway lead and the darkness dissuaded them from finding out.

Havoc caught his senior officers' attention and mouthed 'we should go' clearly, receiving nods in response. Both Havoc and Hawkeye began to back out before Mustang, the senior officer's head sharply looking left and right to let his good eye absorb all there was to see of the room, burning the image of a bloodstained trail into his mind. Surely Dante wouldn't drag her own victims and leave such a mess, would she? She must have numerous people to do that work for her.

It was a preposterous idea, but Mustang's next step did not go backwards, it went sideways, and the man inched himself towards the hall on his blindside, curiosity eating at him so badly from the crimson trail that vanished without answer into the darkness. He would only stray along the blood's path as far as the light would allow him to see and no farther; if there was nothing to be found, no further lit path to take, no pile of Dante's sacrificial bodies to examine, then he would retreat.

Mustang had to wave away Hawkeye, whose glare could have killed him under any other circumstance. The officer continued to inch himself along, his right fingers poised for a snap, his left hand poised to fire, and his nerves wishing he could ignite the machine causing all the music.

The point where the light from the hall became useless was meant to be the point where Mustang turned back, but it was also the point where the hallway opened up on his left and broke off into another unlit hall on his right. The officer figured this had been where the ballroom hosts poured their drinks, readied their food, and prepared themselves for their onslaught of guests. Mustang's attention veered curiously into the opening space at his left, taking a step into the darkened expanse.

A 'click' sounded at Mustang's left ear – he froze. The sound had been right at his ear and his stomach sank like a lead anchor had been dropped in, quickly feeling it heave into his throat. There was a gun pointed at his head on his blind side and Mustang didn't know what he was supposed to do next beyond curse himself for taking on this dark hall in the first place. He would have to terrorize the man who coined the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' in his afterlife. The weapon holder was too tall to be Dante, which made his subjugator either Aisa or any one of the manipulated pawns Izumi had described Dante working with. Wouldn't it be ironic if he turned around and saw Prime Minister Mitchell, Mustang mused. The person holding him motionless gave no orders or commands for what he should do, did not give instructions for him to drop his weapon, remove his glove, or lower his arms… nothing was said to even validate someone's existence behind him beyond the cold tap Mustang felt of the weapon's tip behind his ear.

The man's mouth was too dry to swallow, "Are you going to shoot?" he asked harshly.

No answer was given.

"Or are you just going to fucking stand there like a zombie?"

Apparently that's what was going to happen, because all Mustang got for an answer was silence. It wasn't just any silence; it was _endless, _nervous silence. The officer stood frozen for minutes that lasted forever, locked motionless by the oppressive sensation of a weapon against his head. But the longer it went on, the more Mustang didn't understand why the situation did not progress. In a ballsy show of frustration and defiance, he allowed himself to move, completely lowering his arms, and Mustang turning around over his left shoulder, hearing the definitive sound of a single footstep adjust as his captor moved.

He was permitted to turn around far enough that his good right eye began to take in the scene.

A solid arm pointed a weapon at his head. Mustang blanched, feeling his blood chill at the sight; its wielder was pale and looked sleepless, had eyes that appeared sunken, bloodshot, and heavy – they couldn't hold their focus. Lips that were brittle, dry and dehydrated were licked, swallowing for nothing.

Roy's mouth fell open, finding it almost impossible to pull the air from his lungs that he needed to speak, "Ed…?"

The name had come from his mouth and Mustang couldn't believe he'd said it. Was this even possible? This person, standing taller than Mustang, didn't respond to the name; it was like he hadn't heard it. Was it even Ed?

Ed had been trapped beyond the Gate; Mustang had known that much about the older Elric brother's plight and Brigitte had all but confirmed it… so when had thishappened? _How _had this happened?

What in the world had gone on in this underground city that had brought Edward home?

"Edward…" Roy found his voice again, bringing up his right gloved hand and placing it atop the gun, putting his pinky finger between the hammer and the chamber so no bullet could be fired, "Ed, it's me."

This person was a tall boy sweating buckets with mangled golden hair falling everywhere, escaping wildly from the tie on the back of his head. His shirt was unbuttoned and Roy could see how heavily Ed breathed behind it. The rotation of Roy's world was suddenly spinning in the opposite direction and he began to add pressure to the rigid left arm that Ed was using to hold him back, soon forcing Ed to lower his guard. The gun in Roy's left hand was hastily holstered and once the revolver Ed held was peeled from Ed's grasp, one finger at a time, it was slipped into the Roy's belt as well.

The only way Roy could process what he saw, or didn't see, in Edward was to describe him as being overwhelmed – like everything and anything had tried to crush him and he'd managed to crawl out of the rubble.

"Ed, you need to sit down," Roy looked him over once more; there were a million questions to ask and even more answers to be had, but for this moment Roy more concerned about making sure Ed didn't pass out on him, "come on."

The older man's hands reached out and came down onto Ed's shoulders, an action that derailed all of Roy Mustang's impending actions. The officer's hands clenched the eldest Elric brother for a moment before Roy frantically had the open shirt thrown off of Ed's shoulders. The man's jaw teetered around wordlessly, the good eye devouring what little could be seen in the depths of the building, unable to come up with something to say at the sight of Ed wearing both flesh shoulders. Roy abruptly grabbed the soft right arm and hauled it out from the shirt sleeve. This was it, with flesh, blood, and bone; it was really here – Edward Elric's flesh right arm. He couldn't believe it. The man's dark eye narrowed at the sight of a nasty raw and open wound in the palm of the right hand. Throughout Roy's abrupt examination the golden blonde spoke no words, put up no fight or protest, and moved like a ragged doll. The right arm had been limp as it was admired. Before the part of Roy's mind kicked him for not picking up on any signs, Ed collapsed.

"Woah," Roy caught him, dropping down to one knee and snagging Ed under his arm before Ed hit the ground completely, "easy… easy." All of the alarm bells in the officer's head were going off telling him that something was seriously wrong and a million worst-case scenarios began playing out. Ed was warm to the touch and when Roy checked for a pulse, he found one that rocketed along. The officer had no idea what exactly it was that was wrong and didn't want to imagine what could be wrong with Ed inside Dante's stronghold.

"Come on, we need to get you out of here…"

"No," the refusal sounded like it had been strangled out of his lungs.

Looking around the darkened room, holding the fallen Elric gingerly against his shoulder, Roy's right arm flew out and he set a momentary flame alive in the palm of his hand. Movement erupted in the far corner of the room, and before the light vanished Roy heard a girl's voice squeak and saw a body curl away.

"Borrowing this," Roy relieved Ed of his shirt entirely, tossing it emphatically into the centre of the floor and setting it ablaze with the snap of his fingers.

In the flame-lit room, Mustang's eyes widened, the trail of blood ended in the corner of the room, and the officer watched – no, he heard – the panic in Winry's breaths, watching her arms wrap tightly around the unmoving, blood-soaked body of Alphonse Elric cradled in her lap. Her face, her complexion, everything gave off the same sickened, sunken, exhausted look that Edward had before he'd collapsed, but the sight of Al bloodied, limp, and cradled in Winry's care changed _everything_.

"What in the…" Roy gasped, releasing Ed as he tried to climb past the defensive elder brother. The man made it nowhere, falling to the floor when Ed's left hand flew out and grabbed hold of the front of Roy's shirt – the two of them hit the ground with a thud. Frantically Roy picked his head up, watching the Elric brother move like a fish out of water, trying to balance on the elbow of his right arm and finding no success in the task. The dark eyes of the officer shot to Ed's grip.

"Ed, you need to let go."

That just made it worse, and Ed's knuckles began to turn white.

"Let go, FullMetal," Roy deepened his voice, watching Ed's brow twitch as he tried to see if an authoritarian officer's command would do the trick, "I'm going to help, but you need to let me."

The subsequent few seconds caused Mustang to hold his breath. Amidst the devouring sound of the flame eating the sweat-soaked shirt Ed had worn and illuminated by the flickering light that was created from it, the older brother's fingers loosened and fell down from Roy's shirt, echoing with a light slap when it hit the ground.

"You t'take care of'm f'me."

The response locked Roy's existence down and left him seated stunned on the floor. It was an audible request that barely sounded human. Whatever was wrong, Edward was fighting through it, and Roy watched both the new and old flesh hands move, digging through the pale face while Ed growled at who knows what.

"I'll take care of them, trust me."

Roy Mustang had no idea what was wrong with these three that he needed to take care _of,_ but he would find a way to do it.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**A/N:**

- So sorry this took so long. Constructive concrit made sure this wasn't a botch job. Give AmunRa lots of thanks for making sure I didn't give you a dud to read! I think this version of the chapter can be called version 2.5 lol! Any remaining errors are my fault (and you can PM me if you find them!)

- So, strange thing from last chapter – apparently, at some point shortly after I posted, FFN disabled ALL of my options (review notifications, pm notifs, pms all together… everything). I think I caught on about a week later and I re-enabled my pms... except I did not realize that didn't re-enable my review notifs… so yeah, I think now I have everything functioning properly.  
- Ed will figure out why he got his arm and leg back later.  
- I don't believe Ed has ever regretted what he did for Al. He may have wished for other things, but Ed has always taken the decisions he's made and lived with them, whether he liked it or not.  
- The gun Hitler had left behind for Ed and Winry had came through the Gate with them – Ed had kept hold of it, rather than ditching it after he'd used the two bullets in case it came in handy. His plan had been to escape, so rather than ditching it so that Hitler could pick it up again, reload it, and use it, Ed held on to it.  
- I've had a couple comments passed my way about the spelling of Russell and Fletcher's last name. So, in case anyone's wondering (because the info is really old now) the spelling I've used for Tlingum is the official English spelling Bones used way back when. You can find Russell's name plate (or Nash's) that Bones used if you google 'Tlingum'.


	41. From Sunset to Horizon

_(RIP my dear, beastly, full-screen, matte finish laptop. Everything I have ever written was typed up on you, so you helped me produce much fanfiction in your lifetime. I will miss you. Thanks for not corrupting any of my files when you died… because this chapter, and probably this whole freaking story, would have taken a lot longer if you had. I really appreciated that. Luvs, Yuuki._

_Mental note: Backup everything, everywhere, all the time!)_

* * *

**Part XLI - Chapter 92 – From Sunset to Horizon**

_A chapter for Alphonse Elric._

Something in Al's mind's eye snapped, like the flash from a bolt of lightning, and the young Elric woke up with a start. With free arms swinging and legs swimming beneath bed sheets, Al threw himself upright and his wide eyes were quickly staring into three surprised female faces he didn't recognize.

In the middle of an unknown situation, Alphonse froze.

Where was this! Al's eyes darted around like a startled animal – he was in a large bed, in a room with dimmed lights, furniture, equipment of some kind, wearing plain clothes that weren't his, and in the company of people he couldn't identify. When the boy's eyes snapped to the table covered in equipment and he realized it was medical – instruments and needles and who knows what else – Al's concerns grew by a tenfold. One of the women approached him and Alphonse kicked the sheets off, scrambled along his backside over the mattress, and he thumped his back against the headboard.

"Alphonse, it's okay."

Somebody had spoken to him and Al hadn't listened her – who were these people? What had they been doing to him? How long had he been here like this?

The last place Al remembered being was Dante's ballroom and those memories were fairly unclear. Quick whispers happened between the women, and Al watched with terrified concern as the nurse standing furthest from him picked up a syringe. For a moment, the entire room was encased in ice, frozen in time, and then the two closest nurses bolted forwards to catch Al. What none of them had been prepared for – not even Al – was how the younger Elric brother quickly clapped his hands and the brilliant blue alchemical sparks sent the women scrambling away. Without a moment's hesitation, Al escaped through the hole he'd made in the wall.

Barefoot and in a white shirt and grey shorts, Al stumbled into a hall, staggering on his feet before coming to a stop. Closed doors filled the dim hallway Al stood in, but there was a lit stairwell at the very end and the moment Al recognized the escape route he sprinted towards it.

"ALPHONSE!" One of the women burst into the hall after him.

Al's head lowered and the boy's feet pounded on the wooden floor as he ran.

"Somebody stop him!"

Al's arms flew out to his sides when a door swung open ahead of him. Like he'd seen his older brother do a thousand times before, the younger brother put his palms together again. A body emerged swiftly from the room before Al could even think up a transmutation to perform and it had only taken seconds before Alphonse had his arms forcefully thrown apart amidst useless blue sparks and a second arm jerked up under his chin. The young Elric's legs flew out from beneath his body and Al was flat on his back before he could take his next breath; a much more foreboding presence than any of the three women was pinning him down.

"Hold him!"

"Since when could you do _that_!" the looming body growled, a heavy knee came down on Al's chest and two strong hands held his wrists far apart.

Al's eyes flew wide to engulf the figure pinning him to the floor, "Mustang!"

Mustang's gaze shot into the hall as he heard the scampering of women's slippers along the floorboards, "Where's the goddamn tranquilizer?"

"WHAT!" Alphonse shrieked, jerking his body beneath the knee Mustang had on his chest, unable to break from the hands securing his wrists. Al's voice tore out again when two of the women hit the floor next to him and pinned his thrashing legs, "No. NO! My brother and Winry are in trouble! Let me go! I have to get back to the Gate and help them."

The last woman – the one with the needle – arrived at the scene and her knees thumped on the wooden floorboards next to Al's head. The panic rushing through Alphonse was overwhelming and it peaked when one of her cold hands grabbed his wrist.

"NO! They're at the Gate!" all he could do was scream, "You don't understand what happened! Ed and Winry are at the Gate, I don't know if they've come through! We have to save them!"

Mustang's left hand snatched the wrist of the woman readying a needle destined for Alphonse's arm. To everyone's surprise, and Al's overwhelming relief, Mustang held the woman's arm away.

"I got them to the Gate…" the boy breathed.

Al's chest surged with frantic breaths and a pounding heart despite the pressure of Mustang's hold on him. The darkened hallway slowly lit as more doors opened and bleary eyed men and women poked their heads into the hall to see the commotion. Al wasn't allowed to let his eyes drift away long enough to pick out a recognizable face in the crowd; Mustang snatched Al's chin and the boy found himself nose to nose with the officer's interrogative stare. The younger Elric brother stared right back at him, slowly adding a scowl to the look.

Mustang's only eye narrowed for a brief moment, "Let him go."

"But, sir!"

"Let him go!"

All the hands that pinned Al down released him, but Mustang made sure the knee he had on Al's chest came off last.

"All of you go back to bed," Mustang ordered the lingering eyes out of the hall, "I need you rested, not gawking at nothing."

Slowly, Al sat up amidst the sounds of voices grumbling, doors shutting, and one prominent sound of bare feet walking towards him. Al rubbed his wrists and looked up when an exhausted-looking Lieutenant Havoc walked up next to him, then bent down and picked Al up, putting the boy down on his feet.

"You seem lucid enough," Havoc patted Al on the back, "one outta three ain't bad. Don't need you going postal on us too; Ed was enough of a handful."

It had been an incidental statement and spoken carelessly, but Havoc's words numbed Alphonse's body from toes to fingertips. To the new golden eyes, the entire room vanished and all that remained were the people who could offer words that mattered – Mustang and Havoc. The youngest child of a broken family that had fought so hard to regain what was left to them stood silently for eternal seconds before a painfully exhausted but gleefully excited sound came out in his voice.

"My brother's here?"

If someone had initially answered the question, Al hadn't heard it; the boy's own statement repeated itself over and over in his head until it was no longer a question, but an overwhelming statement of fact. Havoc's few words were definite and concrete; 'Ed' was spoken in present, current tense.

His brother was there.

"Ed is here," Mustang's words found their way into Al's ears, "and Winry."

"He did it…" Al felt a tingling wave sweep through his body as feeling returned and the younger brother's knees suddenly seemed weak.

His brother was home. Edward Elric was home.

_They did it._

Al's heart was ready to burst at how fast it was moving.

Yet, even as the overwhelming joy swelled up, a flood of panic swept in and it replaced his euphoria with concern. Al _had _left his brother behind at the Gate and he had no idea how much time had passed since then nor did he know what had happened to get them both home.

Al refocused his thoughts and shot verbal bullets at Mustang, "Is my brother okay? Where is he?"

Both Mustang and Havoc exchanged glances.

The concern in Al's voice rose when no one responded, "Where is he? Is my brother okay? I want to see him! And Winry!" the words kept stampeding from his mouth the longer the two officers stayed silent, "Is Winry okay? Are they both okay?"

Mustang cleared his throat and stepped forwards, "Edward and Winry are in the rooms behind us," the man's hands came down to Al's shoulders, stopping any sudden movements the young Elric might make, "but they're sedated and they're staying that way for now."

The statement brought so many of Alphonse's questions and emotions to a standstill. Al looked between the two officer's faces, trying to translate the stern look on Mustang's face and relate it to the restrained concern Havoc was showing, "Why?"

"We'll discuss that later…" Mustang began.

"No!" Al sharply looked to the higher ranking officer, trying to step back, "We'll discuss my brother now!"

"I need answers, Alphonse," Mustang's voice grew harsh and deepened as his grip on Al's shoulders tightened.

"Me too!" Al hands clenched fiercely at his sides, "I don't know what kind of answers you need, but mine will all come after I see my brother!"

Stern, stubborn words shut down the actions of all parties in the hall. Curious ears that still tried to listen from their partially opened doors didn't move while the new golden eyes fighting with sword and shield did not back down. If it had been any other person, any other child, boy, or young man, Mustang would never have given in. After a few moments of hesitation and a few more full of careful thought, Mustang's shoulders fell reluctantly.

Al would get his wish.

* * *

It was the middle of the night after a ghastly hot summer's day. While the sun was absent, windows and curtains were open wide to allow the cooler evening air free entrance into the rooms. A fan hummed along near the window of this particular room to spread a weak draft around – it was a valiant effort that didn't do a whole lot of good.

Alphonse's fingers touched a purple and blue cheek with five black stitches in it and Al again brushed away the golden blonde hair that shielded his brother's face and stuck to his sweat-dampened forehead. The younger brother just couldn't help himself – Al continued to stare at this _person _lying in the bed; it was almost unreal. Over and over Al told himself this was his older brother, but it just wasn't sinking in. It wasn't quite disbelief, Al wouldn't go so far as to say that, it was simply surprise and shock.

For yearshe had looked the same: Edward Elric was short, he was nimble, he was strong, and he wore AutoMail – Al's older brother matured mentally during their adventures, but not physically. But this _man_…

Ed's head lulled to the side, his hair spilling over the pillow, resting on the cheek that wasn't sewn together, with his eyes lightly closed and a sliver of space between his lips for air. This face was obviously the face of Edward Elric, but it was _different _and Al had to touch it to convince himself whom he was looking at. Ed's face had been moulded, trimmed and defined with lines, then set like some pottery master had gotten a hold of him. His brother's shirt was off and Al could see the marks on his chest where AutoMail anchors had left scars. Strangely, they weren't in the same locations; Al had seen his brother's body dressed in AutoMail for years, but _these _scars were in different locations from the points on his body where Aunt Pinako and Winry had once installed everything. Al followed the flesh right arm down his brother's body – both his brother's arms were atop the dark green sheet that was across his chest. Al reached out and picked up the bandaged right hand and pressed it between his two palms. Al's eyes examined his brother's body beneath the sheets – Ed filled the bed! Ed never filled a bed; he was tiny and compact like a cat, and no matter how hard he tried or attempted to sprawl out, Edward Elric was _never _big enough to fill a bed from head to foot.

'This' brother was the most astonishing thing Al had come upon in ages and even the twenty minutes he'd spent standing there in silence wasn't enough time to fully connect his 'old brother' to the new one. Every time Al tried to cement this person into his mind, the younger brother felt a twinge of disappointment – he'd missed seeing his brother 'grow up'.

"Why did you drug him?" Al asked.

"Ed has been suffering from the effects of alchemical shock," Mustang's statement gripped Al tightly enough that the boy pulled his focus off of his brother and gave it to the officer, "both Edward and Winry were, so we're giving them enough time to come out of it. It's too much stress on the body not to sedate them."

Each breath Al took sucked in a million questions, each exhale he gave let out only a few answers. Al had no doubt the rebound transmutation he'd initiated was what caused the alchemical shock; it was a short term mental 'short-circuit' that could hit someone after surviving a rebound. Alphonse could understand and accept the fact his brother was recovering from this, but why in the world had _Winry _been with his brother in the first place? And why had she been shot? Who'd shot her? Wasn't Winry supposed to have been kidnapped by Dante?

The questions Alphonse had continued to mount – how old was his brother now? How long had he been gone? What had been happening beyond the Gate? What had his brother done to get them through the doors? The Gate hadn't just refused to let Al bring his brother and Winry home… it was more than that. It was so much more than that and Al couldn't begin to find the words to explain it. The youngest Elric found it frustrating that he had clearly understood so many of the Gate's messages while he'd had his hands inside of it, but he had no way of verbalizing most of it. Al was still trying to find a way to explain why the Gate had adamantly refused to let him bring his brother all the way home – Al knew the answer, he just couldn't explain it.

"Do you know what Dante's done to him?" Mustang's voice finally re-entered the boy's thoughts.

Al straightened up with surprise, "Pardon?"

Stepping away from the wall, Mustang's arms folded and he stopped when his knees touched the foot of Edward's bed, "We didn't know what was wrong when we found you three, so I had the doctor conduct examinations when you arrived. Other than what we could immediately see and tend to, they found a number of old wounds and aged bruising on Ed. I'd like to know what Dante's done to him and how long she's had him."

Al blinked and looked to the wound on his brother's face and then to the one on his hand, "When I saw him beyond the Gate, he had the cut on his face already…" the cleanly bandaged right hand was still captured in the boy's two smaller hands and went unmentioned, "a-and Winry'd been shot beyond the Gate… so, if the injuries are older than that, then they happened on the other side. Dante didn't do any of that to them."

Alphonse hadn't realized the air in a room could get thick so quickly.

"… Winry?" Mustang questioned.

Slowly, gingerly, carefully, Al began rubbing the limp hand between his hands; the facts made him angry, "Winry was beyond the Gate."

The abhorred sound that Mustang choked out from his throat made Alphonse's angered feelings inexplicably worse, "She was _where_?"

"Dante must have done it… but I don't know when," Al didn't realize he could despise any one person as much as he despised Dante right then and there. The boy pulled his lower lip into his teeth as his head began to shake, realizing that Mustang must have thought that Dante was responsible for the injuries that they'd suffered, "is Winry okay?"

"Yes," Mustang's head slowly nodded, "the bullets were removed and her wounds were cleaned and tended to."

Al's brow tightened profusely as the boy looked down at his brother sleeping soundly.

"Alphonse…" Mustang turned his focus onto another issue, "Brigitte described Edward in her drawings as someone who was missing an arm and leg—"

"I got them back," the absolute authority in Alphonse's admission silenced Mustang and the younger brother put down his older brother's unresponsive hand, "I brought my brother and Winry home and I made sure that when my brother arrived at the Gate he would have them back."

Because Alphonse Elric had made a promise years ago to get his brother's limbs back.

Al turned his palms up at himself and looked into the story they had to tell, "When I reached into the Gate, my brother and Winry were standing on the transmutation circle Brigitte had taken pictures of. I realized if I activated it, I could use the rebound to bring them home," Al glanced away in thought, trying to figure out how best to explain things trapped mostly in feelings, emotions, and understandings, "and when I reached into the Gate, I found that there is an energy stream that flows from the other world to ours… it's where the power that we use to perform alchemy comes from. Brigitte's rebound circle would deconstruct them into that energy and send them into the stream towards the Gate, but the Gate isn't designed to process so much information, so they needed to be extracted before reaching the doors," Alphonse looked up at Mustang and took a breath that made so many other actions in his life feel insignificant, "for the mind, body, and soul, the soul is the thing that binds everything together… it makes you a person. So after I started the circle, I picked out their souls as they came to the Gate and pulled the rest of them together, using the souls like magnets. It was easy to do at the Gate and everything that was 'Edward Elric' and 'Winry Rockbell' was drawn together, including my brother's arm and leg – the Gate was forced to give those up as part of the process. It would have choked on their materials if it hadn't."

Deep down, someday Al would acknowledge the perverse pleasure he'd taken in forcing the _Gate _to sacrifice something it had so rudely taken away from his brother.

Alphonse stood in the wee hours of the morning before the sun had begun peeking out from beyond the horizon, staring at a man who looked so firm, so steadfast, and so completely overwhelmed by the information he'd been given. Silence devoured the pair, Mustang offering nothing to further Alphonse's statement, simply standing and staring, trying to comprehend the mountain of details Alphonse had given out in such a short span of time.

"I brought them to the Gate doors and then it was up to my brother to continue on home from there," Al's open palms closed, his fists clenching, knuckles turning white the harder he held on, "and now they're home and safe."

An uncertain pause preceded Mustang's response, "It's beyond commendable." The man's praise sounded distant and withdrawn, like the officer had spoken because he'd felt he had to, but honestly didn't know what he should really say. Mustang stepped away, his arms stiffly folded across his chest, and he made his way out of the room, "Come downstairs and see me when you have a chance."

* * *

Sometime in the hours after sunrise, during a surreal morning where Alphonse's family lay asleep in the care of the man who'd enabled so much of their journey, the younger brother glanced around a room Roy Mustang had taken him into.

"This is what we found with you, Ed, and Winry," Mustang walked deep into a room full of tables littered with unrecognizable things, his index finger directing Al's attention around the menagerie, "their clothes, your clothes, their bags, the contents of their bags, whatever was on the floor, anything that had blood on it…"

Al walked through the room slowly, his attention sliding away from the bloody scarf to the scattering of tools and then over to a heavy brown overcoat and a heap of clothes. Next to the pile of clothing was a table covered in crumpled white paper as well as two empty sacks. Al approached that table first and picked up a few of the top sheets of paper, his eyes dissecting what he read. This was his brother's writing – words printed in the nearly unreadable scribble of Ed's left hand. But Ed's alchemy was always legible; it had to be, alchemy was too important to him to be sloppy, and alongside the mess of Edward's printing were strings upon strings of alchemical theory that piggybacked off of one of many depictions of Brigitte's rebound circle.

"Brother was trying to find a way home…" Al narrowed his eyes at the sheet, "he was taking the diagram and the room… and thinking if he could alter something then maybe he could make this work," the younger brother's shoulders fell as the sheets were lowered. Alphonse swallowed a hopeless feeling that invaded his throat at the idea that returning home had become so impossible that his brother would actually study something like this.

A familiar sound of chain links came into Al's ears and atop the pile of papers from Ed and Winry's adventure Mustang lowered a nostalgic silver watch.

"It was in your brother's coat pocket."

Carefully Al picked it up, cradling it in his hand. The watch was pristine – kept nicely polished and cleaned through every crevice on the device and it looked like it had managed to withstand the wild ride home. Alphonse popped open the lid with the pinch of his thumb. The younger brother had to scramble to get his hands over the table as shards of glass spilled out from the watch. Standing like the rest of the watch might fall apart in his grasp Al waited and watched as the shards glass once protecting the hands of time finished falling away. The second hand continued to tick around the clock face despite the broken shield; the watch hadn't stopped.

"What time is it?" Alphonse asked, shaking out his hands and looking to Mustang who produced a brush and dustpan to sweep the glass into.

"It's eight thirty in the morning."

The hands on Ed's otherworld watch read ten after two. With the shake of his wrist, Al discarded the remaining specks of glass into the dustpan and snapped the lid shut. Al glanced around the tables covered with mystery pieces of an unfathomable story; everything was tagged, labelled, and sorted. Al looked for the spot that the watch had come from – perhaps somewhere near the pile that was his brother's dusty brown, blood-speckled coat? Al headed to that table but the young golden eyes were captured unexpectedly and Alphonse carried the silver watch in his hands over to a little white tray on a table next to a pile of Winry's clothes.

The watch was put down silently and Alphonse's two hands collected a very familiar but very dirtied and damaged little doll. Al stared at the trinket wordlessly, his thumbs brushing the torn fringes of the gaping hole in the side of the smiling doll's face – Al pushed some of the escaping white stuffing back inside.

"We tested everything," Mustang's voice came up behind Al, "that doll has chalk, traces of gunpowder, and Winry's blood on it."

"What happened to them?" Al mindlessly asked the doll.

Alphonse couldn't begin to imagine what all these clues added up to or what story was trying to be told. For a moment, Alphonse's chest swelled with a great deal of pity for the officer standing at his back, because Mustang would have had to extrapolate _something_ blindly from all of this before Alphonse had woken up. For as much as Al didn't know where to begin building a story out of this room, Al couldn't imagine what Mustang must have thought of their situation. The sinking feeling churning in Al's stomach telling him that something disastrous had happened prior to the transmutation that sent all of these clues through with the rebound continued to get worse.

He sighed, not knowing where to start the terrifying tale and Al looked at the doll still in his hands, "Can I take this?"

Mustang hesitated before answering, "It's evidence."

Alphonse's thumbs pushed the soft white stuffing protruding from the tear back into the doll, "Its Winry's… and if its evidence you're never going to be able to prosecute anyone with it."

Silence crept in as Mustang held onto his response, giving the young Elric time to turn the doll over in his hands and see the exit tear that was hidden behind the yarn in the doll's hair. Al wondered how the hair had managed to escape damage.

"Is there any evidence I can gather from all the blood on your clothing?" Mustang finally asked, "we haven't been able to identify it."

"No," Al continued to look at the doll in his hands, his words absolute, "it was blood from the other side of the Gate. You probably won't ever be able to identify it. It's no crime you can deal with."

"Alphonse, would you look at me?" Mustang's request came out quickly, like he'd been waiting for an appropriate time to ask for Al's attention, but had finally given up.

The boy looked up to the officer with a stubbornly tight jaw and stern expression.

The officer frowned, "What happened to your eyes?"

Al blinked and the knots in his face were freed – it wasn't something he was consciously thinking about. It wasn't like every step Al made clanked, or that his voice echoed, or that he'd become disfigured in any way he would notice.

"I don't know," was the answer Al finally gave, looking down at the doll in his hands again, "Sensei and Aisa told me that my eyes were gold… but I haven't seen it yet."

Mustang motioned for Alphonse to head to the door, "Take the doll and go see for yourself."

Al stiffened his expression and held the wounded trinket tightly in his hands, taking strong and steady strides towards the door, "Thank you."

* * *

Al stood over the sink in the bathroom attached to Winry's room. Hours after he'd finally seen so many bizarre facts first hand, the change in his eyes was still startling and to Alphonse it was as distracting as a bruised right cheek with stitches would be. Not only did Al think his new eye colour changed the look of his face, altered the tone of his skin, and gave his hair a lighter tint, but it changed the perception of his eyes too. Every time Al looked up from the sink and saw himself in the mirror, he couldn't help but stare for five, ten, sometimes upwards of twenty or thirty seconds, before returning to his task. Sometimes it felt like he was looking at somebody else's reflection, though it wasn't a frightening sensation.

Al plucked the plug out of the sink and let a pool of pale pink water drain away. The dress from Winry's doll was rung out in a hand towel and set aside to dry. Al turned the beleaguered body of the doll over in his hands, eyeing the blood stains on the fabric that he hadn't been able to completely scrub away with a cloth and soapy water; Al wondered if soaking it would help, but that might fray the edges more.

"Alphonse?"

Al looked out into Winry's room, "Major?"

Riza's footsteps came to the bathroom door, "Here you go," she handed the boy a white plastic bag, "does that work for you?"

Al put the bag down on the counter and pulled out a small swatch of pale beige burlap, a tiny match-case with a needle and thread enclosed, and a small pair of scissors.

"Yeah, that'll do," Al looked up from his collection, picked up the doll and bag, and walked back into the core of Winry's room, "thank you."

Al glanced over to the window, watching as a stray gust of wind threw the curtains open, before he sat down in the plush chair next to Winry's bed; the mid-day sunlight was scorching. The room went silent again and the swatch of burlap was taken into one hand while the pair of scissors went into the other and carefully Alphonse cut out a patch from the fabric. Al laid his cut-out down over the torn hole in Winry's doll and wrapped it around the back of the fabric head to make sure it fit. Satisfied with the piece, the doll was put down onto Winry's sheets and Al flipped open the match case of sewing materials, eyeing the few basic colours he had to choose from. Al popped the needle out from the package and threaded it first with white thread, knotting the string off and then picking up the doll once more. His fingers filtering through the blonde yarn hair and Al debated where he should begin.

"Can't you use alchemy to fix it?" Riza asked, picking up the extra fabric and white bag as she set them aside.

Al shook his head, "Someone took the time to hand make this, so it should be hand fixed," the boy slipped his string into the back of the dolls head, "Sensei use to tell us that if we can fix it with our own two hands, do that instead of using alchemy. She made sure we knew how to hunt, how to cook, clean, build, mend, sew…" Al's voice trailed off, "all kinds of things. Lazy men make poor alchemists."

Riza tried to subdue the smile that sentiment left her with.

Al continued to lace the needle through the fabric in the back of the doll's head, "Have you ever been shot?"

"Me?" Riza's brow rose, adjusting the firearms belt around her waist, glancing to Winry laying in the bed, eyeing how the ends of her sheets were not tucked in and knowing that was so the nurses could change the bandages on her leg, "Yes, I have."

"Did you get shot in the leg?" Alphonse asked calmly as he worked.

"No," Riza looked off in thought, wishing she could remember if she'd known anyone who'd been shot in the lower leg, but all the woman could come up with for memories of comrades with gunshot wounds was the immediate afterimages of Mustang laying on the ground after a bullet had struck his eye. She shook her head of the memory.

Alphonse continued to hold his voice steady and composed, "You think Winry'll walk okay when she's healed?"

"She'll walk just fine," it was irrelevant whether or not Riza honestly knew if there was detrimental damage from the gunshot wounds or not, Winry would walk just fine, "and when the sedatives are done and her body says it's time to wake up again tomorrow, Winry can tell you herself."

Alphonse's needle moved through the fabric, winding white thread through the doll's face. With the twist of his wrist, Alphonse pulled the needle through the fabric at the lower cheek of the doll, then slipped his needle off of the thread and began pulling out a bit of the stuffing from the hole he was patching. The white fluff fell lightly into Al's lap and the younger of two brothers snatched up the match case and snipped out a bit of black thread. Al's brow knit as he wrinkled his nose, trying to thread the needle once more, and after he successfully accomplished the task, Alphonse looked abruptly up to Riza.

"Can it be tomorrow now?"

It was such a serious question and, despite how steady and true Alphonse had tried to keep his tone, the question had sounded so childish in his voice. Riza ended up responding with a light laugh, wishing she could give a different answer, "No, I'm sorry."

Al didn't even sigh before his needle dug into the cavity he'd created in the doll's head and he started to recreate the corner of the dolls smile that had been at the fringes of a bullet's destructive wrath.

"I have a patrol group to take care of, so do you need anything before I go?" Riza offered.

Al shook his head, "No, I'm fine."

"Okay," Riza nodded, stepping away and turning towards the door, "you know where to find us if you need anything."

Alphonse knotted up the black stitch work that fixed a smile and tucked his threads inside the doll as the woman left. The stuffing in Al's lap was collected and returned to the doll's head, and then the boy re-strung his needle with the white thread once more and continued his mending.

In the quiet room where people came and went, where the hot mid-day breeze lazily played in the fringes of the curtains, and where Winry Rockbell slept, Alphonse finally knotted off his final stitch and let the yellow yarn hair fall back into place. A softened smile worked its way into Al's expression and he turned the doll over in his hands, looking down at the mending task he'd completed. The shade of burlap was a little pale, Al's stitching wasn't perfect, there were still bloodstains on the fabric here and there, and it was certainly obvious that something had happened to damage the poor thing, but it was in much better shape that it had been before.

"There you are," Al brushed his thumb over the smiling face of the doll, "much better."

Al stood up from the chair and wandered back into the bathroom, picking up the lightly-damp outfit he'd washed and re-dressed the doll. Walking back to Winry's bed, Al stopped at the foot, grinning at how quickly she'd twisted herself around – it was like she'd sensed the room had been momentarily empty. The aid workers and nurses that Mustang had acquired kept trying to have Winry lay on her back, but Winry continued to roll onto her side, nuzzle her nose into the pillow, and resume sleeping soundly.

Still grinning, Al put the doll down next to the pillow Winry had buried her face in and quietly left the room.

* * *

Alphonse could have sworn he'd lived through his longest day by the time he'd fallen asleep that night. For all his boring and uneventful time at the Gate with absolutely nothing to do, the day Al had just spent in Mustang's base of operations rivalled complete and utter torture.

With both his brother and Winry unresponsive in their beds, Al had paced the top floor of the commandeered hotel amidst the sweltering July heat. He'd walked the proverbial 'hole in the floor' and tried to calm himself, tried to rest, tried to eat, tried to sleep, and tried to tell himself that things would be okay. None of it was working – Al was sure that his hair would turn grey at some point before puberty hit him.

Once the sun had set below the tallest buildings, Al escaped the summer heat by throwing himself half dressed into a pool the hotel kept out back in search of some momentary relief from everything he had been dealing with. The jaunt outside had been suggested by Lieutenants Havoc and Breda, who'd told Al that if he did nothing but pace around and silently worry over Ed and Winry he'd either turn himself into a wreck or make himself sick.

Al had floated on his back, staring at the magnificent hues of the Amestris evening sky, and tried to pinpoint exactly what was turning him into a spring waiting to be sprung; maybe if Al analyzed it he could calm himself down. Of course there were the nerves and anticipation of his brother and Winry finally waking up and hearing the stories they'd tell, but there was also fear for some kind of repercussions from leaving them at the Gate. Al also wasn't certain how their bodies had handled the transmutation or how much of it they'd even remember; Al dearly hoped they remembered very little. Then there was the unnerving mystery of all the clues that his brother and Winry had come back with from the other world. To make matters worse, no one seemed to know what had become of Izumi – Al could have surely used his teacher's company by this point.

What stood out greater than every other fact was the one overwhelming feeling telling Alphonse that he was indescribably excited.

The boy could see it: a bright glowing light at the end of the tunnel. Their lives had been starved of normalcy for so long, they'd been deprived of the warmth of flesh for just as long, they'd endured so much, they'd been almost irreparably separated, and the search for and realization of some form of success for each brother's journey was _right there_. Alphonse felt like he was a rabid beast chasing a raw slab of meat, except the beast could run and hunt the prize down – Al couldn't run fast enough to advance time to get what he desired. What Al wanted most of all was for everyone to wake up so he could look at all of their lives together – finally – and see: that after everything, this is who they were today and they're okay. It was a magnificent picture in the younger Elric's mind no matter how many injuries or oddities had occurred along the way.

After Al had worked through the escapade of his own thoughts and had dried off from the pool, Al twisted himself into a knot again when he watched the nurse give his brother one last shot to ensure he slept through the night – Al was dearly hoping they'd somehow forget to do that.

At some point past midnight, nearing the twenty second hour of consciousness, Al had finally fallen asleep in the chair next to his brother's bed and then woken up a few hours later with enough time to see the sunrise, witness the graveyard shift change over, and realize his world was exactly like he'd left it the day before. The silent stress Al had built up over the never ending day that suddenly became never ending 'days', combined with a poor night's sleep, gave the boy a moment where he either wanted to scream in frustration or burst into tears. Alphonse did neither.

That morning Al had braved the trek into the core of the hotel in search of breakfast. The hotel dining room felt like it was nothing more than a fancy disguise for a mess hall. Military personnel of all walks of life from Mustang's growing collection of people loitered in the room and Al quickly realized that the retrieval effort for himself, his brother, and Winry in the days prior hadn't gone unnoticed. From what Al had gathered directly from Mustang and his direct company was that it had been an unexpected rescue operation that the officer had stumbled upon and then the three officers had spent hours struggling to get them back to the hotel. Both Edward and Winry hadn't helped their causes – they'd both been wrapped up in their own deliriums and that had made them not only difficult, but _loud_. Now the trio had become instant gossip material.

Al's senses were better than the whisperers were giving him credit for; he could hear when their names were uttered and see when the glances looked his way. Al's identity had been kept under wraps until that point, because he'd been referred to as Izumi Curtis' child and only Mustang's inner circle knew who he really was. Al was slightly amused to realize the monstrous size discrepancy between his human self and his armoured body worked to his advantage – no one was buying into the story that the two entities were the same person.

Everyone seemed relieved to know that Winry was in their care – it liberated Lieutenant Havoc from all of the claims and allegations put against him in regards to her disappearance. Al was somewhat relieved to hear amidst the gossip that many had doubted the accusations in the first place, but whispers of Winry didn't last long. Al was content to have her left out of the gossip; the fewer people who talked about her, the less chance Dante had of knowing she was back.

So the real firestorm of stories surrounded the 'someone' resembling Edward Elric, the FullMetal Alchemist, who had been brought in and stashed away in the upper floors. People wanted to know where the former state alchemist had gone, what he had done, and what had happened to him while he was away. People had their theories, but none of the tales were true. Stories were made up about adventurous things, like how Edward Elric had travelled beyond the borders of Amestris in search of the Philosopher's Stone, how he'd headed through the desert to nations beyond to perfect his alchemy, and even some things less harrowing like he'd retired or gone into hiding and Mustang had hauled his ass back into service.

Alphonse at least knew where his brother's journey had taken him, though all Al could see of the journey was the front and back covers, he didn't know the contents of his brother's storybook.

Unable to convince himself to eat, Al gave up on breakfast, leaving it behind on the table, and he returned to waiting for the point where his brother or Winry would come out of their sedated stupors. Desperately in need of something to do, Al gave himself the task of dreaming up everything he wanted to say to his brother once he finally woke up. The list was long and continued to get longer with a mountain of 'whats' and 'whys' and 'hows' and numerous other w-type questions. As Al could figure it, if Winry had been beyond the Gate, she would have told his brother about him, but Al still wondered if Ed would be surprised to see him. It was funny to think – now it was Ed who was so big and Al who was so small. Unlike his excitable older brother, Al didn't mind his size one bit.

With the daydreams of his future life with his brother writing up stories in his head, Alphonse eventually – _finally_ – fell asleep again later that morning.

* * *

One of many attendants who came and went throughout the endless day accidentally brushed the curtains and splashed hot sunlight into Al's face after he'd drifted off. The boy hastily cursed the bright summer's day while a voice he didn't recognize apologized for the rude awakening. Al slipped in the chair he'd fallen asleep in and stretched his legs, pointing his toes as far as he could manage. With a sigh, his muscles were all released and Al slouched horribly in the seat. From the sloppy position Al had, with his arms slung over the sides of the chair and his backside nearly falling off the lip of the seat, Al watched the last nurse in the room scuttle about before snatching up a sheet of paper and slipping out the door.

Alphonse yawned, dumped his tired head against his shoulder, and looked at his brother lying on the bed, absently eyeing a matching set of golden eyes tiredly staring back at him.

A good five seconds passed before Al realized…

"BROTHER!"

Al jerked so suddenly that the seat cushion slipped out from beneath him and the boy landed on the floor with a thud. His arms and legs flying, Alphonse scrambled back to his feet, staggering to regain balance and unable to find a reaction in the list of things and ways he'd dreamt up on how he'd properly greet his brother right here and now.

"You fell on your ass…" Ed's words came out slowly and sloppy while a grin worked its way into his face.

"Y-you're up! You're awake!" Al's words were frantic – this wasn't how this moment was supposed to go! "When did you wake up! Wh- Ho-how long have you been up?" the younger brother's thoughts were pulling him a million different directions while the shot of adrenaline made each thought strong enough to tear him apart. Much to Ed's amusement, Al danced in one spot.

"About half an hour…?" Ed shifted on the bed, stretching his shoulders until something cracked, "kept closing my eyes when the nurse walked by… didn't want to cause a commotion, it'd wake you up."

What an absolutely absurd idea! Alphonse's hands slammed down on the mattress and gripped the sheets with enough strength to tear them, "You _should_ have woken me!"

"Pff… I was watching you sleep," an unintelligible noise was forced through Ed's lips as he released himself limp to the bed, "it's been a while since I've seen you sleep. It was nice to watch you breathe."

Alphonse's jaw slipped and it hung open wordlessly; he couldn't find a response for that. Again and again Al found himself opening his mouth, taking in air, and attempting to find something monumental to say to his brother. He had a million questions, had a million more things to just _say_, and every time Al readied his thoughts with verbal bullets to pepper his brother with, the young voice only shot blanks. Without having said a thing, Al climbed onto the bed at his brother's side and sat back on his knees.

"I feel like I weigh a thousand pounds," Ed squirmed a bit before giving up on moving for the time being and just looked up to Al instead, "I can barely move."

"They kept you asleep so you could recover," Al put his hands down in his lap, resisting the urge to giggle because the medication was obviously still in Ed's system – he sounded drunk.

"They…" Ed pinched his eyes as he sifted through some strange memories, "Mustang-they?"

"Yeah," Al nodded, an excited grin finally beginning to surface, "they found us and have been taking care of things."

Ed opened his mouth to comment but ended up stalling without voicing his thoughts. A single eyebrow lowered with concern as he stared at Alphonse, "What the hell is wrong with your eyes?"

Al blinked; even after staring at himself for hours on end in the mirror, his mind still didn't register that his eyes were a new colour, "I haven't figured that out yet."

Edward decided to take Al's answer and leave it at that. His eyes slipped away, squinting as the heavy curtains failed to obscure the time of day when a breeze came up again, "Is Winry okay?"

"Yeah," Al nodded, "they fixed her leg up, so she'll be okay."

The conversation paused at that point, like neither boy knew where things should go next – there were a million things to say and all of them felt as important as the next. Two brothers soon existed together silently on a borrowed bed waiting for the world to sink in, neither moving until a breath of wind tossed the edge of the curtain, flooding the room with sunlight.

"I don't really remember what happened after I came back through the Gate," Edward sat up a little and he reached his arm out, scrunching a handful of golden brown hair atop Al's head, "but I remember something about finding you covered in blood and I couldn't make you wake up. If I'm the one in bed and you're the one watching over me, I take it you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Alphonse nodded as the light breeze from the window died and the curtains settled to dim the room, "the blood wasn't mine and it was the Gate's fault I was asleep."

Ed's hand slipped out of the mess he'd made of Alphonse's hair, "The Gate's fault?"

Al nodded, letting the feeling of accomplishment, pride, and success flood into his chest and invade his smile, "I found a way beyond the Gate, and when I reached in I saw you and Winry there," Al watched his brother draw upright in bed, "I turned on the transmutation circle to bring you home."

A terrified and concerned sound surged into Ed's voice, "_Why_ were you at the Gate?"

"Dante," Al figured the single word was enough of an answer.

Edward's head snapped to the side in disgust, like he was ready to spit at the sound of the woman's name, but then the older brother paused as a realization quickly struck and he looked back to Al, "Wait, can you do the…?"

Grinning ahead of his response, Al crawled across the bed, clapped his hands together, and put them down on the bedroom wall. A blue spark lit the room and both boys looked to the door, watching it close and seamlessly seal as Al presented his answer. Al looked back to his brother enormously pleased with himself, "Yeah, I can."

Edward's gaze eventually slipped away and down to focus in the palms of his hands, "I don't dare clap my hands right now," Ed clenched his fists, "there's all this untested, unproven garbage I picked up beyond the Gate in my head… I'm liable to blow something or someone up by mistake if I don't test my knowledge first. I can't risk that," he swallowed heavily before pulling his shoulders up once more, "I'm going to have to re-learn a few things with Sensei and work my formulas out here so I'm not a danger to anyone," the bridge of Ed's nose abruptly creased, his eyes narrowing with a scowl, "and then I'll use it to get that greedy bitch."

"That was it… I remember," the younger brother's voice swept in while his thoughts ran about, eyes flying wide. Al slid himself up to the side of his brother once again, crossing his legs and sitting on the mattress, holding is ankles as he looked into the confused and concerned expression Ed offered him, "I couldn't get you through the doors. I tried, but the Gate… it… it wasn't that it didn't want you to come home…" Al's gaze slowly looked around the room as he tried to find a way to voice a feeling and a knowledge that was indescribable.

"You weren't supposed to come home."

Ed's brow rose.

"It was wrong," Al stared back into his brother's golden eyes, "I don't remember anymore why it was so wrong, I just remember feeling and knowing and understanding that it was completely, totally wrong. The Gate tried to enforce that on me."

Edward turned his hands over and stared into his palms resting atop his knees.

"I think the Gate was afraid of what would happen if you came back, because you knew too much," Al's words tumbled from his mouth, like if he didn't get the words out quickly enough, they'd disappear, "but it wasn't fear… it was something else. I don't know what, I can't explain it. It was just wrong, it was never _meant _to happen, so I couldn't bring you all the way home. The Gate still wanted you."

Ed gave his acknowledgement to Alphonse with a slow nod, flipping his hands over between the fronts and backs, "I guess I satisfied the Gate enough that I was allowed to come home."

It was a statement so wide open that no one could have resisted asking and Al jumped in, "What did you do?"

Alphonse watched as Ed lifted his arms and stretched them out in front of his body, facing his palms out into the room. The fingers of his right hand could stretch as well as his left, the bandage on Ed's right hand restricted full movement. The brothers watched as stripes of sunlight slipped into the room from between the slow-moving curtains and painted Edward's arms with white light before the older brother let the two flesh limbs fall down to his lap.

Edward grinned his characteristic, knowing grin, "I opened the door."

Alphonse didn't know if he wanted to drown in fear of that statement or reach over and punch Ed for it. Al knew his brother well enough that the words he answered with were the window dressings for something else. But, if his older brother wasn't willing or able to disclose what exactly he'd done, even in this sealed room, there had to be a good reason for it. Al wondered if there was ever going to be a point in their lives where nothing existed beyond their family that would threaten what the boys could share with each other.

All that remained between this point and that was Dante.

"You said a long time ago that the Gate was full of knowledge and everything we might ever have wanted to know was there," Al looked to his brother curiously, "it was full of all kinds of truths you wanted."

Ed laughed, "Yeah, that world was full of knowledge. I found a million treasures there and read incredible things, studied up on the histories of people who'd died century's ago, ate up their 'mythology', understood the means of things that world couldn't possibly figure out," Ed cleared his throat, sitting up a little more, "fantastical things, impossible things, the history of all other things…"

"But?" Al offered.

"But," a hard, definitive tone came out in Ed's voice, "the 'truth' isn't beyond the Gate."

According to Ed in years past, the Gate had withheld some kind of truth – and it frightened their teacher but tantalized the older brother. A wealth of unobtainable knowledge was there and, though he never had the chance to actively seek it out, so many of the things Ed had thought he'd wanted had been flashed before his eyes during his trips to the Gate. The Gate had cruelly teased a forlorn child and made him feel like it concealed enough knowledge to give Ed back everything that he had lost.

"The Gate didn't have anything I wanted," Ed looked to his younger brother. The biggest truth that no one knew about was the kind of exchange required to obtain alchemy knowledge from beyond the Gate: _everything _else. "I wanted to leave, I wanted to come home and see you, I wanted to save Winry from it, and none of the massive amounts of knowledge and formulas and history I ever found in that world could do that for me."

Beyond the Gate was a dark world, ravaged by its own doings, and grossly ignorant of its past – Al had seen it clearly and could still feel the sluggish pulse of their lives. At one point in the other world's long forgotten history it _had _been an alchemy trove, but not anymore. The tangible value the other world had to the Elric brothers' world was buried within history, now the two worlds had moved beyond their historical origins and evolved to carry on a symbiotic relationship. Al was almost certain that if the souls of that world didn't have a place to escape to and didn't have a one-way street to the Gate doors, the world beyond would somehow swell so much that it would explode – alchemy in the brother's world was a necessity to drain the energy from the other world so it could continue functioning safely.

"I had get home to you," Ed's brow creased, his voice deepening, "If I ever stopped, then I was giving up… I couldn't do that. I couldn't give up on you or on Winry."

Al felt the hot air of the Amestris day burn in his lungs with every breath; the younger brother had known something absolute the moment he'd reached into the Gate, so surely if Ed had been focussing so hard on that rebounding transmutation circle he must have known as well…

"Brother, there was nothing you could have done to get home."

By the look in his brother's eyes alone, Alphonse realized that at some point Ed had reached that conclusion. But what Al saw wasn't a resigned gaze or humbled expression – it was steadfast and absolute defiance against the truth.

"I'd have kept searching – something would have turned up," Ed scowled, "There was _too much _to that world that something someday wouldn't show up for me to use."

Al wouldn't give his brother the courtesy of thinking he was ignorant because Ed was too smart to be that foolish, so he was simply being stubborn – so stubborn that Edward wanted to believe he alone could overcome his own pre-determined fate.

Without warning Al flew forwards, his child-sized arms engulfing his older brother, and the bedding exhaled a puff of air when two bodies fell heavily into the pillows and sheets. The entire room vanished; the light, the sounds, the surroundings, everything, while the two strongest arms the younger sibling had ever known squeezed tight around the boy's shoulders and back. Each brother shut out the world for a few minutes, hanging on tightly to something they'd fought so hard for and had tried so hard to get back.

Both brothers were allowed themselves a moment to feel and indulge in the profound feeling of success.

"I missed you," Ed managed to share.

Alphonse strained to hear the hoarse message his brother had given and the younger brother squeezed his meagre human arms tighter, trying to find a way to match the trembling strength in the arms capturing him. With a deep breath, Alphonse spoke into the ear Envy had violated when the sin had told Edward this journey that had been taken and sacrifices that had been made was an odyssey without rewards; he was supposedly entitled to nothing.

"Welcome home."

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**A/N: **

Ed's had two chapters all to himself in the story, it was time Al had one. It was time for something less traumatizing for everybody… I can't make Ed's life miserable all the time :)

Alrighty, everyone is home and more or less safe and sound. The last arch in the story covers Dante. Whoo!


	42. Second Chances

**Part XLII - Chapter 93 - Second Chances**

Alphonse Elric sometimes felt like two different people: the boy who had lost his memories and the boy who had been armour. Today he was the boy who had been armour was newly flesh again, so from that perspective it had been years since Al had felt his body move like this. The younger of two Elric brothers ran through the floors of the hotel like he was made of elastic and weighed nothing at all; the tips of his bare toes threw him forwards and his arms pumped momentum along while the boy's hands grabbed at the air, hoping he could pull himself forwards a little bit more with each motion. He'd been doing it all day: running – there was so much excitement! Al bounced off the staircase railing before bolting upstairs, his legs launching him to every third step, and Al burst onto the top floor almost unburdened by gravity.

Like the guard monitoring the upper floor had been expecting his arrival, the officer's finger was pointed down the hall, "Miss Rockbell's room."

Al found his stride again as he powered down the hall, rebounding off of the doorframe and nearly falling into Winry's room, staggering to a stop at the foot of her bed and gasping for air.

Already awake, Winry looked back at Al through tired eyes, her hair sitting wildly atop her head. Slowly pushing herself up onto one elbow for support, Winry sat up a little further.

"Al…"

Alphonse lost interest in catching his breath; again he moved quickly, leaping onto the bed on all fours, scrambling across the sheets, and his arms flew around Winry. The pair fell back into the pillows and the bedding seemed to explode on contact. They sunk into the bed, Al holding on with all his might and Winry too heavily medicated to do much more than just hang on.

"You're okay?" Alphonse asked when the sheets had finished settling down around them.

"Mmhm," Winry nodded.

"I'm so glad," Al squeezed a little harder and it took all of his willpower not to cheer into Winry's ear, "and I'm so glad to see you! You're finally awake!"

"I'm glad to see you too," Winry giggled at the excitement in Al's voice, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," with another tight squeeze and a deep breath, Alphonse finally let go. He sat back on his knees at Winry's side, helping her sit up in the bed, "Are you okay? Is your leg bothering you at all?"

Winry was stuck between bewildered and overwhelmed as she processed the questions, "I'm fine Al. My leg, it…" Winry glanced down, concern slowly entering her face. Both Winry and Alphonse sat on the bed quietly before the blanket moved when Winry wiggled her toes.

"Your leg should be numb!" Al chirped, "The nurses numbed it because of the surgery and soreness. You can't feel it at all, can you?"

Winry wiggled her toes again. For a moment – only a fraction of a second – there was a very distant and unsettling look that passed through Winry's eyes. Before Al could think of anything to say or do about it, Winry smiled at him, "Its numb Al. It doesn't hurt."

"Great!"

"Al…" a frightened sound emerged quickly in Winry's voice, "is Ed okay?"

"Yeah," Al would have yelled his joy over that fact out the window if he could, "Brother's in the next room!"

Winry's relief could almost be felt – the loss of tension in her body, the loosening of her muscles, and the sigh in her next breath. Al's excitement teetered around for a moment before he slid himself off the foot of the bed and dropped to his knees.

"Did Brother get into some fights before you two came home? The Brigadier General says he's pretty banged up," the top of Al's head vanished from Winry's sights.

"Al…?" Winry's curiosity rose, "what are you—"

Al's head peeked over the mattress, "I have something for you!"

"You do?" Winry tilted her head.

"Yup," Al bounced to his feet, pulled something heavy out from under the bed, scraped it along the floor, and then heaved it onto the top of the mattress.

Winry's eyes lit like a child on Christmas morning, "My tool kit!"

"I think we found everything that was in it," Al beamed, crawling back onto the bed.

"Oh my beautiful tool kit," the medication wasn't strong enough to keep Winry bedridden from _that. _She pulled herself out from beneath the sheets and crawled to the foot of her bed, throwing open the lid, "what a sexy bunch of instruments you all are."

"I thought you might like to see that again," Al beamed and sat straight like a proud and praised puppy, "figured you hadn't wanted to get forcefully divorced from your favourite things."

Winry laughed at the notion, "Al, you have no idea."

Unable to do much more than grin and soak up the unfolding day, the younger Elric brother slid up side-by-side to Winry on the bed, "This is great – this is all great!" it was so strange for Al to try and verbalize how good it was to feel so successful when there had been no point prior when anything had gone this right, "I have my brother back, I have you back," Al's grin exploded, "I even got my memories back!"

"You got what!" Winry's blue eyes flew open wide, her dropped jaw morphing into a widening smile as she stumbled through her words, "I thought Izumi said… but, you got them back… _really?_"

"Uh huh!" Al glowed.

"Al, that's fantastic! I'm so happy for you," Winry smiled, a still-tired pair blue eyes looking into a sparkling set of golden ones, moving like she was prepared to hug him…

… and suddenly the whole exchange derailed. Winry froze, "What the-?"

"What?" Al looked around abruptly.

Winry leaned in nose to nose, pushing Al back in surprise, "What happened to your eyes?"

"Oh," Al blinked; even after staring at himself for hours on end in the mirror, his mind still didn't register that his eyes were a new colour, "I dunno."

"Mr. Elric, Miss. Rockbell?" a voice interrupted.

Both Al and Winry turned to the doctor who stepped into their reunion.

"I'm going to need Miss Rockbell for the next short while," the older, burly man folded his arms, "to ensure everything is as it should be. I'm going to ask you to excuse yourself, Alphonse."

"Okay," Al slid himself off the side of the bed.

"No no, wait Al, come back for one sec," Winry's hands patted down on the sheets, "get up here."

Al glanced to the doctor who shrugged his approval and crawled back up onto Winry's bed again while she motioned for him to re-seat himself in front of her. Even while Al was still settling Winry collected one of his hands and held it in her grasp until he was seated. Al watched with interest as Winry turned his hand over and opened it palm-up. Al had noticed something about everyone else's hands – they all seemed more worn than his. Izumi had told Al at one point in time that Ed had transmuted him to a state that was something like being brand-new; his hands and feet, elbows and knees, none of them felt like they had any wear or tear. Though, out of all the hands he'd come in contact with since his older brother had brought him back, even after all the journeying, Winry still had the softest touch out of anyone. Winry placed her other hand down on top of Al's open palm and looked at him for a few moments. Winry's eyes moved around, looking him over carefully like she was inspecting him for something, and settled for a straight-on stare back into Al's eyes. It was a soft gaze that lasted long enough to cause Al to shift around and hope Winry couldn't see him blush.

Al was given his hand back suddenly and Winry's hands landed on his ears – she dipped his head forward and left a strong kiss on Al's forehead before freeing him.

"Go hang out with your brother for a while," Winry told him, sending the boy slinking off the bed again, red in the cheeks and grinning fiercely, "he missed you like crazy."

Al backed himself up to the door, thumbs finding the belt loops on his pants, "Sure, I'll make sure he's not giving the other doctors headaches."

"You do that," Winry smiled, "and come back and see me later!"

"Yup," Al bowed his head and scampered from the room, "will do!"

* * *

Edward Elric concluded that the Amestris sky was brilliant – brilliant with its scenery, brilliant with its colours, brilliant in its vibrancy, and just brilliant. Throughout the evening the sun moved down through Ed's vision, skipping across slanted rooftops, and eventually dipping below the skyline – but not below the horizon – and the sunset managed to create a host of colours Ed had forgotten had existed. Sunsets in Germany and Britain were nothing compared to this. The polluted, lifeless grey that had been infused into everything was washed away and Ed was at a loss for how to explain how it felt to see that.

Ed glanced over when the latch to the roof was rattled and the hinges groaned. Ed grinned when his younger brother's bright gaze fixate on him – the colour change in Al's eyes hadn't been hard to get use to and Ed actually thought it made the expressions on his face shine a little more.

Every time he saw Al it was like drifting through a good dream – Ed hadn't seen this much of his brother's flesh face outside of his nightmares in _ten _years.

"Watching the sunset?" Al asked as he walked up.

"Yeah," Ed grinned as Al sat down next to him.

"What were the sunsets like beyond the Gate?" Al crossed his legs and looked up to Ed.

It wasn't like Ed to stall when Al asked questions, but he took a moment anyways and just looked at Al in the evening light. The Alphonse Elric sitting next to him was exactly what Ed had wanted to reclaim and at first and second glance it still didn't quite seem real. None of the important things Ed had ever wanted, or thought he'd wanted, had ever been reclaimed, so there was a throbbing lump in the centre of Ed's chest that made him think he was waiting for the punch line to a cruel joke to appear or that he'd finally see the catch in his life for this reward. Even though he'd known months in advance that Al had his body back, that he was alive and healthy, to look at his younger brother like this, to know this would be what he would see day in and out, Ed felt an endless bombardment of relief, joy, and excitement.

Al would get to grow up.

"Brother?"

Ed's nose wrinkled and he threw himself back into the conversation, "Sunsets sucked beyond the Gate. The sky was filthy."

"Pollution?" Al's asked.

"No," Ed shook his head, "just how things were: everything looked dirty."

"Oh," Al sat forwards, casting his gaze out towards the remnants of sundown, "I kinda got a glimpse when I was at the Gate, but what kind of things were there for you to do beyond the Gate?" the younger brother rubbed his hands over his knees, "like, you couldn't have possibly just studied alchemy for so long?"

Ed chewed on the question for a moment, which was sort of like trying to grind down a huge wad of leather. What did he _do _beyond the Gate, "Well… I'd been working the last year. I had to get money somehow."

Al sat himself up a little higher, eyes widening with interest, "What did you do?"

"I…" Ed suddenly realized that his line of work had been very, very unlike him; he hated that world for domesticating him, "I was on office assistant."

"You were a what?" a laugh was buried in Al's surprised voice.

"I was the office bitch in the science wing of the university dad worked at," Ed suddenly hopped he wouldn't have to tell that to anyone more than Al… the looks on peoples' faces would get old really fast.

Al didn't speak up again for some time; Ed turned to him and sat silently while he watched his brother wrap himself up deeply in thought. Al sat quietly for a few moments, twitching his nose while he thought. Ed recalled the wretched feeling of watching his younger brother think as a suit of armour: Al would be frozen – almost vanishing into his thoughts like he ceased to exist – and nothing would move. If Ed was lucky, Al would hum his thoughts. It was a painful silence that lasted as long as it took to draw his conclusions. Now Ed looked on while Al thought, watching his brother's eyes move, brow lower, nose flinch, lips purse, shoulders roll, and feet shuffle.

It was five seconds where everything was just _so _right.

"I have a question," Al finally blurted out, "Dad was with you beyond the Gate, wasn't he?"

Ed didn't think he would have encountered that question and have everything around him feel good enough that it would just roll off his shoulders. Ed dressed himself up in a frown anyways, "Yeah, Dad was beyond the Gate with me."

Al shifted himself around so that he faced Ed, "Did you know him very well? Did you two talk?"

Ed sat up a little straighter and looked back at a number of years' worth of memories, "I… um," and after some thought and consideration Ed dug out the desire he needed to tell Al so many of his stories, "I lived with Dad."

"Huh?" Al blinked.

There was a trove of stories and Ed wanted to tell his brother so much of it.

"I lived with Dad for most of the time I was there."

Al was very lucky he was already sitting down.

"What?" Al gawked with disbelief, his eyes darting around in confusion. Ed's reply defied everything the boy had ever believed possible between his brother and their father, "Y-you did? Wh… w-why? _How?_"

Ed almost felt like laughing at the reaction – if someone had told him his story in advance, Ed wouldn't have believed it either, "I'd lost my arm and leg again and I was sick. Dad found me in a hospital and when I was well enough to leave he brought me home with him. Dad kind of um… forced his fathering on me."

"And you took it?" it really just wasn't sinking in for poor Al. This was his older brother who loathed and despised their father to a wretched degree.

Ed smirked at Al's reaction, "I took it. I didn't take it willingly most of the time…" Ed hesitated, allowing his eyes to lower and his thoughts to drift back to the beginnings of a lonely journey that felt like it had started a lifetime ago… and strangely it came after another lifetime he'd had that was even farther away. Ed looked back up to his younger brother and felt a little old, "but I didn't know where I was, I didn't have anywhere else to go, and I wasn't in a position where I could take care of myself. So, yeah, dad tried to play parent for me."

Al's wide eyes bounced off the rooftops surrounding them before they leapt back to his brother again, "Did you two get along?"

Ed narrowed an eye, "That depends on your definition of 'getting along'."

Before Al dug up another question the younger boy let his focus fall into his hands, "When I reached into the Gate, I could see everything. And I don't just mean 'everything'; I mean I could see _everything – _even things that weren't things_._ It was too much, I couldn't understand it all, but I understood enough to know that if I thought about you, I'd find you… and I did," Al looked up to his older brother, "but I tried to look for dad and he wasn't there."

Ed swallowed his next breath, "Dad died, Al."

Preceding silence wasn't needed, the younger brother just slowly nodded, "I figured that's what happened. Do you know how he died?"

Al might never get out of his older brother a proper explanation for the gut-wrenching, sickened look that sat behind Ed's eyes, but Ed still gave him an answer, "Envy killed him."

Again something was said that derailed Alphonse's thoughts, "_Envy? _What was Envy doing there?"

"He got through the Gate at some point," Ed shook his head, distancing himself from a few memories, "He didn't come through like the rest of us, he came through as… well, a thought in people's heads. He was a homunculus with no soul and his body didn't make the trip, but his mind came through and floated around looking for someone he could either use or wanted to use him," Ed slowly pulled in a deep breath before continuing, "Envy's stuck there now, there's no way to bring him back. He can be their nightmare from now on."

Al had no reply for his brother's statement, the boy's eyes only wandered away and drifted off into the sky.

"I'm sorry you never got to spend much time with him, Al," Ed's hand finally patted down atop his brother's soft hair, "you would have been able to appreciate him a lot more than I did."

"I can't change it," Al shook his head, a definite sound of disappointment being suppressed, "so I'll just have to get stories about dad from you."

Ed rummaged his hand through his brother's hair, rocking the boy's head with the motions before letting it go, "Well…"

Al looked to Ed as the older brother twisted his face with some thoughts.

"If you want…" Ed narrowed an eye and the bridge of his nose creased. Ed thought for a moment about what he wanted to say and finally drew back to Alphonse, his lips curling with amusement, "I can tell you the story behind how Dad got himself royally fired from his advisory job with Britain's armed forces before we moved to Germany. It's kinda entertaining."

Al's eyes again widened with intrigue, curiosity, a bit of concern, and fascination above all else; a number of looks that Ed might never get tired of seeing on the face of his baby brother. Even if Ed never regained feeling in his arm and leg, or if the damage done from the journey stung forever, none of the wounds would ever be enough to overpower the feeling of sitting right here right now. Ed would willingly keep all the imperfections if it meant he could have moments like this for the rest of his life.

Alphonse grinned at his brother, "Sure!"

* * *

Winry Rockbell had pushed the sorry excuse for a table in her hotel room up next to the window after a painstaking amount of effort. It wasn't a great view but Winry still liked seeing what she could of the trees, the rooftops, the sky, and the stars – even in the night full of faint street light it absolutely beat out the mundane scenery she'd just spent months looking at. At some point during her observatory evening she'd managed to hobble over and turn off the lights so the stars would show up better. Winry hadn't noticed until she was looking at an Amestris sky again: there were so few stars in the other world's sky.

A knock interrupted everything and Winry glanced over her shoulder when the door opened. The intruder made her smirk.

"Well, hey there stranger," Winry narrowed a teasing eye at Ed through the dark room, "I heard a rumour you existed. What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Ha ha," Ed snorted at the greeting and hid his hands in his trouser pockets after shutting the door, "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Do you think I'm any good at being bed ridden?" Winry rolled her eyes at the question, "and what do you think you're doing coming into a girl's bedroom if she should be sleeping? You knocked then let yourself in –didn't even wait to see if I'd answer."

Ed puffed out his cheeks and huffed as he walked up to the window, "Chances of you being asleep were poor to none, and if you were asleep I'd have left."

Winry narrowed an eye and patted her hands atop her knees, "Lucky for you I wasn't trying to get changed."

Ed drew to a stop at Winry's side and his cheek twitched while he looked out the window, his hands sinking deeper into his pockets, "I worked this hard to get home alive, I'd like to stay that way."

Winry withheld the urge to burst out laughing at him, "So, what's up?"

"Nothing much," Ed shook his head and stuck his nose to the window, "what were you looking at?"

"Nothing much," Winry smiled sweetly and gave Ed back his useless answer, tipping her head innocently when she caught his gold eyes look at her unimpressed, "just seeing how everything looks from here."

Ed gave a dismissive nod to everything, "Did you want to go up onto the roof and have a look?"

Winry choked on her laugh, "Do you know how hard it was to get all this set up with me hobbling around on these wooden… _things_," she gave a wave of her hand to her crutches, "I can barely get to the bathroom, I'm not hauling myself onto the roof. That'd take hours."

Ed chuckled at the sour look Winry put on to go with her protest, "I can take you up onto the roof, Win."

"I don't want to be toted around, Ed," Winry sighed, "if I'm going up to the roof, I'll take myself."

"Are you doing okay?" Ed's question fell out like he'd managed to pop the balloon that held the words.

Winry figured he'd shown up for some purpose that was more than just nothing. The problem with the question was that the gauge she'd once used to determine 'okay' was in need of repairs and Winry wasn't entirely sure what a proper answer to the question would be.

"Well… I'm home, I'm safe, I'm with family…"

Ed's left hand surfaced and landed carefully on Winry's shoulder, "But… _you're _okay?"

Yes, Winry was okay because she wasn't dead or in a life threatening situation anymore… but Winry had been pulled right out from middle of the most terrifying ordeal she'd ever been through and plopped right back into real life. Winry felt like she was still supposed to be afraid of something. She didn't want to even glimpse at the events in the Thule Hall; it was done, she wanted to move on. No, Winry corrected her thoughts, she didn't want to 'move on' – she wanted to run from it.

Winry straightened around on the table and collected Ed's hand from her shoulder. She pried his left hand open wide, watching Ed's fingers straighten like his knuckles were stiff hinges. Ed had used this one hand every day, let it take abuse every day, and continued to rely on it every day to take care of them both and make sure Winry was in some state of 'okay'. Ed was always trying to take care of Winry, he'd told her that and was stubborn about it to the n'th degree; even when Winry would stomp her feet because she didn't want it and even when she was hurt enough that Winry really needed to hear Ed say he'd look after her. Winry looked up to Ed, eyeing the confused and awkward look on his face. There were black stitches on Ed's purple and yellowed right cheek bone; even in the dark, their Amestris world was clear enough that the colours could be made out, and when Winry's memories reminded her of the moment leading up to when Envy had struck Ed to cause it, Winry wished she could turn her mind off. Or crawl away from her thoughts. Or make it all un-happen. Or just-

Ed's voice intruded, "Winry?"

Winry blinked and looked at Ed for a few moments, the concern on his face and in his eyes defeated any other shade, colour, or expression he might have donned.

"You okay?"

After a moment was taken to thoroughly read the look on Ed's face, Winry smiled and let his hand go. She rose on her good leg, holding onto Ed's shoulder to steady herself and Ed grabbed her arm as she wobbled. Even before she was steady Winry threw her arms around his neck and shoulders, squeezing with all her might. Ed staggered a few steps back, grabbing Winry as he stumbled trying to steady them both. When Ed's two feet became firmly planted and Winry teetered around on only one tiptoe, everything in the room spun to a stop.

"Thank you," Winry spoke quietly, "for how hard you're always trying to take care of me."

Without another word the two of them stood in the middle of Winry's dark room, a slit of streetlight the only thing peeking in from between two buildings shielding Winry's window. No one moved within the room, no movement came from beyond the four walls either, like everything had frozen just as Edward had. There were always these awkward moments where Winry would engage Edward beyond his comfort zone and he honestly wouldn't know what to do – it was sort of like interacting with a statue. But Winry had whittled down the time it took Ed to figure himself out, so it wasn't long before the statue softened into someone who put a hand down on the middle of her back and wrapped the other arm around her shoulders.

"And I'm so glad you came home," Winry's fingers dug into his shirt, "I'm glad that we're safe and that it's over and that we won't go back," she tucked her forehead away into a place on Ed's shoulder that he'd set aside for her tears and left it dry. "I don't know how I'm supposed to feel right now and I don't know how to describe how I do feel. I don't know if I'm okay or if I'm something else. I think I'm supposed to be talking or crying or venting or dealing over a lot of things and I can't… it's just not there," Winry's shoulders rose when Ed's grip tightened, "but I'll be okay, I promise."

After the moments she'd used to take her next few breaths, Winry found herself on the receiving end of a hug that out muscled her own. The world beyond Winry's window on this night remained strangely calm – no distant gunfire, sounds of people, or wind in the trees, and the world in front of Winry's window offered very little to overturn the silence. Wrapped in a quiet midnight cloak, Winry closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," one of the two hands on Winry's back found its way into her hair to hold her head, while the other arm wrapped tight around her back, "for everything you've gone through and everything you've had to deal with."

"It's not your fault. It's never been your fault."

"I'm still sorry."

Beyond the Gate Ed had held himself accountable for Winry; what she'd dealt with and the things that had happened to her. Ed had held himself accountable for Winry every day; for what she'd lost and what she had the potential to lose. Ed held himself accountable for Winry and he would do everything in his power to stave off the world from breaking her down like it had spent every day for five years trying to do to him, even if the harder Ed tried, the larger the blows they were dealt became.

Ed had made himself so accountable for Winry's state of affairs that, by the time there were wounds on her body and waking nightmares preparing to become demons in her head, the places Ed kept her safe, the warm and quiet places where she could hear him breathe, became the safest places in the world.

Some point well after Winry had told herself to ignore the soreness of the tired leg she'd been balancing on, Ed's grip loosened when she moved; Winry reached back for the table she'd been sitting on and Ed helped her slide back on. Winry tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up to Ed as he stepped away, capturing his hands before he could hide them again and Winry held them in her lap. Ed never tried to worm away or hide the embarrassment painted on his face, in fact Ed seemed quite entranced by the entire engagement; a very enthralled pair of golden eyes watched her with an expression that was some kind of cross between a person engrossed in a story and a deer caught in headlights. Winry wanted to giggle at how lost Ed seemed to be.

"Mr. Mustang's going to want to talk with us properly tomorrow, isn't he?" Winry breathed life into her voice.

"Yeah," Ed nodded.

Winry's brow tightened, "You guys are going to have to figure out what to do about Dante, aren't you?"

Ed's eyes were the first thing to depart the conversation, "Yeah."

"Okay," like she'd expected the answer, Winry accepted the response with a nod, letting go of Ed's hands, "then I'm going to go to bed and make sure I'm wide awake for question period."

"Yeah," Ed backed himself out of the engagement with a few reverse steps, then he straightened his shoulders and let his hands vanish into his pockets, "yeah, good idea."

Winry watched while Ed's next few steps turned him around and took him through the dark room to her door, his feet heavy on the floor like they weren't on his list of things to think about and his ponytail bouncing wildly with each step. Ed grabbed the knob, turned it, but didn't open the door – he looked back first.

"When we're done with Dante and it's safe to travel, I'll take you home like I promised."

Winry's brow rose – that didn't make sense, "Ed, we are home."

Ed stood at the door for a moment, barely able to be seen in the pale evening light. With his face locked up in a stern, unwavering expression, his powerful eyes the only thing catching what little of the street light made it through the room, Ed stared back at Winry and pulled open the door.

"Not all the way."

* * *

Roy Mustang had been more than prepared to capture and corral Edward coming downstairs that morning, figuring the once-metal FullMetal Alchemist would rise with the sun. While he lounged around alone amidst a collection of leather chairs pushed together to encircle a table littered with empty glasses and beer bottles waiting for the sun to rise, what Roy _hadn't_ been prepared for was Ed making his way back into the building at four in the morning.

Edward Elric was a startling thing for the officer to see no matter how many times he'd encountered Ed since his return. Beyond the fact that Ed was monumentally taller, he also carried himself differently. For this ungodly hour jaunt, Ed was dressed in a pair of beige trousers and wore a white dress shirt in place of the medical casuals he'd been dressed in since his rescue. The shirt was long sleeved, but Ed had rolled it up snug around his upper arms, left the top button of the shirt undone, yet he'd still chosen to tuck it into his pants. Ed wore a simple pair of sandals, his hair was tied up in a ponytail, and to Roy's amazement the entire outfit looked nice, casual, and properly pressed.

Mustang couldn't get over how strange that look was for Ed.

"What?"

Mustang retrieved himself from his thoughts and stared blankly at Ed's frown.

"What are you staring at?" Ed's brow fell further, one foot on the lower rung of stairs leading up into the suites of the building.

Shaking himself free from his analysis, Roy straightened himself out in his seat, gulped down what was left of his drink, and pointed to one of the opposing chairs, "Have a seat."

Ed took a moment to think about it before turning and taking up the man's offer. Roy watched the bandaged right hand hang from the flesh arm attached to Ed's proper shoulder as the whole limb swung in time with each step; he'd never observed Ed function with two matching arms before.

"What are you doing up this time of night?" Roy sat forwards as Ed dropped himself into a seat cushion, taking a bottle up from the mess and refilling his glass.

"Couldn't sleep," Ed pushed both his hands through his face, clearing away his hair, before it all fell back into place again, "thinking."

Mustang swirled his drink, melting away what was left of his ice cubes, "Ah, they must be deep thoughts to keep a man up so late." Without adding anything further to the current conversation, Mustang took a sip from his glass and then watched while Ed gave him a long, hard look before snapping his eyes around the arrangement on the table.

Ed finally narrowed an eye, "Are you absolutely wasted?"

Roy snorted, taking another drink, "I haven't been here that long. I can't speak for those who sat in these chairs before me though."

For whatever reason Mustang couldn't pinpoint, the response seemed to bring Edward to life. He watched while the golden blonde fished through the collection of glasses on the table, unearthed one that was potentially clean, and pushed it across the table. Roy blinked at it.

"You sharin'?" Ed questioned.

Mustang cocked the brow over his seeing eye, "Magic word?"

"Fuck you," Ed chirped.

For someone who'd apparently been up all night, Roy was more than entertained by Ed's socially good spirit – it was unusual. Roy reached forwards, picked up the glass, and stood up, "I didn't know you drank."

"Now you do," Ed's elbow hit the arm of the chair and his chin landed in his hand.

"Why are we drinking together?" Roy asked as he walked through the room. He did actually want to know why; this scenario wasn't in his top 100 in the list of things he was expecting to do this year.

Ed's reply was blunt, "Something new to do."

"Yeah?" Mustang reached onto the counter and flipped open the lid to an ice box, filling the stout glass half full with ice cubes, "well, word to the wise, I don't recommend drinking too often," he fingered his way through a choice of bottles that had been set aside from the collection of beer and generic lacquers that littered the centre table, "you end up with hangovers, memory loss, an empty wallet, and naked women in your bed," Roy undid a tall bottle and filled Ed's glass enough to submerge the ice. He glanced back, picking up his tone, "the latter of which isn't a bad thing mind you."

Roy was rewarded with a red-faced scoff followed by an eye roll.

"And I've always found I sleep rather well afterwards," the amusement on Roy's face continued to grow as the conversation topic frayed a couple of hair's on Ed's head, "it can also help release some tension. If you haven't tried it recently I do recommend acquiring company if you're having trouble sleeping."

Ed responded to Mustang with a magnificent deadpan expression and his flattest tone, "Not bloody likely."

Roy hesitated before grinning at Ed's reply. He sat himself down again and pushed the drink across the table to Edward, then wove his fingers together and put his forearms down on his thighs, "Where did you get that?"

"Get what?" Ed sniffed his drink and crossed his eyes.

"The accent," Mustang mused.

Ed's interest in the drink waned, "I don't have an accent."

"No, I suppose not… not really," Roy reconsidered his statement. Beyond the fact that Ed's voice sounded deeper with the absence of his scratchy pubescent teenager problem, there was something very odd that kept popping up now and then, "you have an interesting inflection in your voice that comes and goes – it sounds faintly like an accent," he watched while Ed curiously swirled his drink around, searching for legitimacy to Roy's statement, before the officer added a touch of clarification, "It sounds snooty."

There was a moment where Ed's brow rose, his eyes widened, and his lips began to curl – like the blonde knew something Roy didn't – before Edward finally burst out laughing. It wasn't exactly what Roy had been expecting for a reaction, so the man watched while Ed had himself a good laugh over the insight and wondered if he'd ever be let in on the joke. When Ed finished calming himself down he surprised Roy by abruptly downing the entire glass of alcohol he'd been given, nearly dropping it on the table by the time he'd taken the last swallow. What remained of Ed's amusement turned into coughs – the alcohol watering his eyes and flushing his face red.

Mustang's night suddenly felt quite unbelievable. He collected the glass Ed had discarded and made his way back to the side counter again, replenishing the oversized shot Ed had taken, and promptly returned to the two man engagement.

Ed's left fist thumped his chest as he continued to fight the after effects of the drink, "_Snooty?_"

"Yes snooty, and don't drink this one so fast," Roy put the glass down in front of Ed – now seemed as good a time as any for more relevant questions, "how's the feeling in your arm and leg?"

Ed shook his head, giving a sniff to the drink in front of him before picking it up, "Same as the last time you asked."

Roy felt a twinge of disappointment – he was kind of hoping Edward had a revised answer for him beyond 'numb', "And I heard you mention earlier you are twenty-two now?"

Clearing his throat, Ed shifted his posture and sunk into the arm of his chair, "Yeah, I turned twenty-two a couple of weeks back."

Roy was going to have to do a lot more work to convince himself that Ed wasn't sixteen going on seventeen even if it was visually apparent he was not a child. The officer voiced another question, "That means you've been gone for six years?"

Ed shook his head a little, "Mmm about five and a half. Not six."

The way Ed spoke so casually about the length of time he'd been gone for was just a little unsettling from Roy's perspective. There were over five years in Edward's life where he'd lived in some place, existed in some way, and survived somehow in a world the rest of them would never know. Roy mulled over the answers he was getting, finding them willingly given without Edward's snarl or snark, and figured he'd continue with question period until Ed's willingness to engage in civil conversation waned. With that thought in mind, Roy daringly drove his questions up a few notches.

"Who assaulted you?"

"Excuse me?" Ed narrowed an eye.

Mustang slowly walked his carefully placed line of questions, "Obviously there was an incident around the time you came home, but when the doctors checked you over we found a host of old injuries that predated what we could see. What's been happening to you?"

In the middle of the night that was far closer to dawn than dusk, within the poor overnight lighting that the hotel kept on, Roy sat and waited while the question was weighed over in Ed's mind. The older man watched Ed's hand push aside the hair that covered his face, his fingers scratch into his scalp as it all fell into place again, and then Ed moved on to scratch the back of his neck.

"We were jumped," Ed scowled, his voice toning down into a low growl, "we were in an alley and got jumped."

For a moment Mustang considered requesting an elaboration, but unlike everything else Edward had offered up during the conversation, this one had a good deal of bite to it and it felt like it contained a substantial amount of the wall Ed had kept around himself for so long. Something in the back of Roy's mind told him the door to this question was a little bit more closed than he'd have liked it to be. As the officer debated where he`d take his questions next, Ed beat him to the next word.

"You know, when we were in Dante's ballroom," Ed took a moderate drink from his glass, a golden eye twitching at it when he swallowed, "and everything was a mess, I can remember asking you to take care of Al and Winry for me…"

Roy's brow rose, "I'm impressed you can remember that. You were out of it."

"Yeah," Ed shook his head like he was trying to escape the memory. He took a sip from his drink, "but you still took care of them anyways."

Mustang frowned, "You say that like you didn't expect me to."

"Not that," Ed looked into his glass of dwindling alcohol, the tension in his brow vanishing, "just, thanks for looking after them for me."

Mustang sat silently for a moment. Before all other thoughts occurred to him, the one thing Roy couldn't shake was how worn Ed was sounding. The subsequent thought interrupted the first – Roy hadn't even considered being _thanked _for that, let alone thanked from Ed. While Roy watched the blonde show deliberate interest in the drink in his hand, the officer's thoughts fell back to a moment where he'd been running through the Rizembool countryside, chasing down a runaway boy wearing a braid down the back of his neck. What Roy wouldn`t have given to get it through that stubborn child's thick skull that his commanding officer was trying to look out for him. He was trying to help. Roy had _wanted_ to help. He'd always had the boy's best interest in mind – everyone around them did – if Ed had only opened his eyes wide enough to see it.

"You're welcome," suddenly Roy wanted to know the entirety of what had happened to Ed beyond the Gate, but since the sun was already crawling out from behind the horizon, the details would have to wait, "and you should get some sleep."

"You know," Ed paused to finish off his drink, clanking the glass down on the table as he swallowed before standing up, "this shit is disgusting."

Roy grinned, "It's strong. You'll sleep like a log."

Ed gave a thoughtful nod and headed towards the stairs up into the building, "Thanks for the nightcap."

With his grin still present, Roy called out a teasing bid goodnight, "Did you want me to ask one of the hostesses if any of them would like to be referred to your room before the sun has completely risen?"

Ed stopped on the fourth step, his head shaking while his fingers danced around on the handrail, "I hope you die in a fire."

Roy let out a sharp, barking laugh, "Hardly."

* * *

Al had caught Winry sitting at the edge of the pool from an upper floor window. He watched her sit quietly on her own for a few minutes, the sun dangling directly overhead, her wounded left leg tucked away while the other dangled in the cool water of the pool. Al couldn't quite make out what Winry had in her hands, it was a metallic object of some kind and she turned it over on occasion, but whatever it was had her undivided attention. The younger Elric brother gave up his vantage point and made his way down, smiling across the deck to Winry when the screen door made a ton of racket as he came outside to join her.

"Hey Al!" Winry called.

Al walked up alongside her, kicked his sandals off and sat down. All dipped his legs into the pool, eyeing the wrench he spotted cradled in Winry's grasp, "What's that for?"

"It's for Ed," Winry sighed, like the object was a lot heavier for her than the weight in her hands would suggest, "well, sort of - it's the wrench that I bought ages ago to work on his AutoMail. He doesn't need it anymore… I'm not sure what I should do with it."

"You can use it for other things, can't you?" even Al had hung around Winry long enough to know when a tool was a little more than your garden variety kind.

The wrench was turned over in Winry's hands again and she wiggled her foot in the water, "I've used it for other things before it's just… this and Ed's AutoMail were synonymous things. My poor wrench has lost its purpose," she looked over to Al abruptly and spoke with a pouty lip, "it's purposeless and I feel sorry for it."

"That poor wrench," Al bit his lower lip and tried not to laugh, which was hard to do because it became obvious Winry was trying not to laugh at herself, "maybe you should hold a decommissioning ceremony for it?"

The discussion didn't go much further, both Al and Winry turned over their shoulders when the noisy screen door complained again. Ed ducked out of the shaded cover of the hotel and winced in the sun.

"Brother! We're debating the fate of your AutoMail wrench," Al announced as Winry flipped it around once more in her hands.

Ed's brow rose as he sat down on the other side of Al, "Yeah? Maybe you should melt it down and make something new?"

"I don't want to melt it," Winry scowled, "it's a _fantastic _wrench!"

Al had to admit he also felt a little put off by Ed's desire to melt it, "Don't you want to keep it Brother, like as a memento or something?"

Ed snorted, "No."

"Well, why don't we go get lunch and think about it more over food?" he looked between Ed and Winry flanking him, "I'm hungry."

A wild smirk swept into Ed's face, "For a little guy, you sure do eat a lot."

"Actually," Al pulled himself to his feet, straightened his posture, and looked smugly at Ed while his older brother stood up alongside him, "like a normal person, I'm a growing boy at this age," Al ducked out of the swat Ed made at him, "so let's go inside!"

No sooner had Al expressed his desire to head indoors than a flurry of gunfire and the sound of glass exploding from a window overhead kept the trio from going anywhere. Winry flattened herself against the pool deck and both Elric brothers dropped to their hands and knees. All three sets of eyes watched glass rain down from a shattered window in the hotel room a few meters away. Again a round of gunfire was set off and suddenly the sound of men's voices rose up.

"Get in the pool!" Ed ordered, "the door's too far, get in the pool Al!"

Alphonse scrambled towards his brother, getting grabbed by his wrist and then the scruff of his neck as Ed hauled him into the water. Without being told, the trio took a collective deep breath and all three vanished beneath the surface of the water in the deep end of the pool. The water had more than enough clearance above all their heads to hide in and Al opened his eyes as he sank to the bottom, looking to Ed and Winry as everyone put their backs to the pool edge and tried to crouch on the pool floor for as long as they could.

Really, this idea of hiding their movements at the bottom of the pool to discourage gunfire had a sixty-second life at best; all depending on when the first person needed to come up for air. Before anyone needed to breathe, the calmness in the water was abruptly disturbed by what felt like a boulder being dropped into the pool. The water surged, pressing the trio into the pool wall and pinning them for a moment before the backlash ripped them away. Three scrambling bodies rose to the surface.

Ed was the first to gasp for air, followed quickly by Al then Winry. Everyone frantically looked to a black mass in the water as they scrambled to get to the pool edge. All three pairs of eyes watched as the mass burst out from the water and landed on the patio deck like a dark soggy mop had been flung there.

Ed, Al, and Winry watched as Wrath snapped his head and threw his hair back, sending a shower of water everywhere.

Ed's jaw dropped, "You're still around?"

With purple eyes looking more like an animal than anything human, the homunculus grinned at the trio hungrily, "I found my arm and leg."

"That's so fucking old!" Ed barked, and though he had more to say it was all cut off when Winry put her hand in Ed's face and abruptly shoved him away.

Like she could have boiled all the water around them, Winry's voice raged with hellfire, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THAT AUTOMAIL, WRATH?"

Both brothers looked at the wayward homunculus that Winry had done the humanitarian thing for and dressed up in her finest AutoMail.

It was rusted. Al's eye twitched.

It was mangled. Ed paled.

It had springs and wires popping out. Winry's fingers twitched around her wrench.

"It's very durable," Wrath stomped his AutoMail foot against the pool edge and the wild child swayed on his feet like an ape. Before anyone could react further, Wrath exploded from his stance and leaped over the pool.

Al clapped his hands together and used the water from the pool to snare the homunculus – surging it up like a geyser while Wrath sailed over it and then sucking him back down into the water once again. Wrath hit the surface with a belly-flop crash.

"Al!"

Al glanced over as Winry called for his attention.

"Can you pin him down on the deck?" Winry pushed herself towards the adjacent edge of the pool, cringing when the homunculus burst out of the water again and re-emerged above their heads with a scream, "I don't want to get electrocuted."

There was no time to debate it and Al kicked his feet through the water, clapped his hands together, and slammed them down on the edge of the pool. Two extensions of cement jettisoned out and caught onto Wrath in mid-air and a second transmutation rolled the homunculus up into the tendrils of solid material, quickly pinned him screaming face-down to the ground.

"Great," Winry climbed out of the pool.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing WINRY?"

"SHUT UP ED," she silenced him with her most vicious glare.

Al watched, nearly wanting to cover his ears at the screams Wrath was making, holding his breath as Winry sat on the creature's ankles and latched her wrench onto the knee joint of her AutoMail work. Wrath continued to thrash within his bindings.

"Winry! He's going to break it," Al shrieked as both brothers scrambled through the water.

"Two seconds," Winry ripped her wrench around at the inside of Wrath's knee before she hooked it onto a secondary latch and ground down her teeth in frustration, "stupid thing is caked in rust… two more seconds."

The brothers reached the pool's edge Winry was at and snapped their attention to the back doors of the hotel, watching wide-eyed as a host of armed officers with weapons pointed burst onto the patio.

The cement bindings cracked as Winry pried her wrench around once more. Wrath exploded from his trap, knocking the mechanic onto her backside at the lip of the pool and sending her wrench sailing across the yard – embedding in the doorframe next to Mustang's ear as he emerged.

The officer stared blankly at the blunt object.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE, FULLMETAL?"

Ed gawked – Mustang was expecting _him_ to answer for this?

Wrath flew to his feet and stared down the collection of officers that stood poised to fire, knowing no one would shoot because there was someone sitting behind him. With a glint in his eye, Wrath took a step back on his AutoMail leg and looked over his shoulder at Winry on the pool deck.

The entire audience watched as two bolts suddenly went flying under the pressure of Wrath's weight and a number of springs sprung with the shift in balance. Winry folded her arms and glared at the creature while the entire knee joint buckled under his weight, completely falling apart. With a squawk, Wrath toppled over, falling into the pool amidst the clatter of parts hitting the patio.

"And that's why you take care of your AutoMail," Winry snarled.

No sooner had Winry announced her victory than another 'boulder' hit the water, showering Winry and following Wrath in, sinking the creature in the process. The boys startled exchanged glances before looking to Mustang, now standing at the pool edge. Ed and Al made their way to the shallowest end of the pool, watching a chaotic mass of darkness churn in the deepest parts of the water before it all went motionless. In the brief moments where everything was calmagain, Mustang's men moved forwards with weapons trained on the water.

The chaos in the pool's deep end moved again, slower and calmer, and a dark displacement drifted towards the soggy pair of brothers. The displacement came to life within the water, making its way towards the Elric brothers, and the boys' stomachs suddenly churned in absolute terror when they saw Izumi Curtis arise from the pool, the woman's own wrathful gaze assaulting everyone she glanced at with bricks. Dressed only in her leggings and black shirt, but wearing the most pissed off look anyone had ever seen her put on, Izumi dragged an unresponsive Wrath by his hair in one hand and carried a cleanly-sliced AutoMail arm in the other.

"S-Sensei!" Al moved towards her.

"SIT YOUR ASSES DOWN!"

Al abruptly backed up and sat down in the shallow end of the pool next to his already seated brother.

Izumi stopped, water at her knees, and she glowered at the two boys looking like they were wishing they could crawl away. The woman's eye twitched, "Hello Edward."

Ed cleared his throat and paled to a fantastic shade of Elric-white, "Hi Sensei…"

With the heaving motion of one arm, Izumi tossed an incapacitated Wrath onto one edge of the pool deck and then tossed Winry's rusted piece of work onto the other. The woman's arms flew back into her body, firmly folding across her chest, never once bothering to move the mess of soggy hair out of her face. Izumi took a sharp breath and everyone with an eye on the scene flinched.

"DO YOU HAVE _ANY_ IDEA THE KIND OF HEADACHE YOU'VE CAUSED ME?"

* * *

To Be Continued…

* * *

**A/N**

Hey guys, sorry I didn't really reply to any reviews last chapter. I made the mistake of posting right before moving and that was a crazy distraction. But thanks so much for the R&R, glad you liked the reunion XD

Ed has a very profound, private, and absolute appreciation for all the people he got back… you know that saying "you don't know what you have until it's gone" - Ed, why do you have to learn things the hard way?

I have never, ever written Roy and Ed interaction before (well, I haven't written a whole lot else other than this, but that's not the point) I was sort of like "uhhh…" the whole time LOL.

Just to revisit Al's situation and the age discrepancy between the boys now. Ed is 22; he was 16 and a half-ish when he got booted beyond the Gate at the end of the series and has been there for a subsequent five and a half years. Al, at the end of the series, was 15 but was reverted to a 10-year-old (the exact state where he'd vanished turning the transmutation of Trisha). I had 9 months go by in Amestris before picking up the story (so Al had his '11th' birthday… actually 16). Al was 11 for the entirety of the story until he got his memories back, which bumps his mental state up to 16 but leaves his physical state at 11. I really messed that up, didn't I? Am I going to adjust Al's physical appearance? No, he's going to get to have his adolescence :3 and grow up like all the other kids he got to see grow up. Al is going to be the only child on the planet to appreciate puberty… o.x;

OMG I had the worst writer's block all month… this chapter was like pulling teeth… so was my next one but I got over that this morning. Tuesday I go back to school :D I started this fic at the beginning of the last time I went to school LOL. I damn well better finish it before I'm done school…


	43. Bad Witch

**Chapter XLIII - #94 – Bad Witch**

Ed had watched his father stand at the front of lecture halls and teach for years. Hohenheim had taught in Germany and he'd 'lectured' in London briefly, so Ed _had _stood at the front of a classroom at one time or another; albeit, when the room was empty. It was a whole other feeling to have people focussing on him as an educator – it was kind of a powerful feeling, even if it was only a handful of people watching.

"Brother?" Al looked at him.

Ed shook his head, snatched up a black pointer stick, and refocused, "The Theory of Beyond the Gate is flawed," his golden eyes scanned the meeting room comprised of Al, Mustang, Armstrong, and Izumi – the people who'd actually understand what he had to say, "at least, Dante's version of it is. Dante believes her knowledge is close to complete because she's unaware of the other portions of the theory that the other side of the Gate covers, which means that everything she's doing is based on a forty to forty-five percent understanding of the full theorem."

"You've seen the theory?" Izumi asked, seated in a wooden chair with one leg crossed over the other.

"I've read it cover to cover," Ed nodded to his own teacher, his thoughts becoming occupied by memories of the book Envy had stolen from Hohenheim's office in Germany and mailed to Ed in while they'd been in England. Ed frowned, "dad had written a revised version during his time beyond the Gate with everything he'd learnt, but he was only able to complete it to eighty percent. The information needed to complete the theory is unobtainable information and exclusively part of that world's ancient history." Ed found it ironic how much he'd wished there'd been a complete version of the theory while he'd been lost in the other world, yet now that he was home he was so thankful that he'd never found one – he didn't want to be responsible for _that_ kind of powerful knowledge, "So, there is no way to successfully bridge the Gate with the theory without guessing at the missing portions and running experimental trials."

"What we do know for sure is that the two sides of the Gate have a symbiotic relationship," it was Alphonse's turn to digress in the conversation, "our side feeds from the energy sent through the doors in order to lessen the strain on the other world."

"The soul energy of the deceased?" Mustang asked, restraining the disgusted undertone in his voice, "the dead souls you described earlier from the other world that I use whenever I perform alchemy."

"Yes," Ed's response came through firm and absolute, "and you have to be okay with that."

"You just can't think about it," Al echoed his brother's sentiment, "or maybe look at it in a different light: if our world didn't use their souls for our alchemy, then we wouldn't have our way of life and that other world would become ruined."

Armstrong's voice billowed up from the back of the room, "If we didn't tap into that energy, would the souls become useful to that other world and their knowledge of alchemy?"

"No," Ed shook his head, "they've actually evolved in a way that prevents the usage of alchemy. I think it was just part of their natural evolution so they wouldn't destroy themselves," Ed glanced to Al standing against one of the tables before looking back to his thin audience, "if we ever stopped using alchemy, the volume of dead souls pooling at the Gate would become so overwhelming that the souls would begin to seep back into the other world. They'd have…" Ed paused to think about his next words, wondering if it was really what he wanted to say, "ghosts."

Before the alchemists in the room could check their moral compasses or begin to swallow the ramifications of what the brothers had to say, Al stepped in once more.

"Now that Diana's dead, one of three things can happen if Dante continues to try and breach the Gate with the partial knowledge of the theory," Al lifted a finger, "one, she'll get the information she wants and we'll have to try and contend with someone who has god-like powers," the younger brother popped up a second finger, "two, she'll break the Gate and the doors will be stuck open…"

"Despite the kind of anomaly the Gate is, the energy flow between the two worlds is regulated by the Gate so we can both live our lives in the safest possible manner," Ed did his best not to sound horribly, disgustingly bitter while praising the Gate, "if the doors stay open and we taste too much of that pool of power, then our world would become oversaturated with energy and that would essentially cause an alchemist to overload. You'll overload the biological circuit board connecting the mind, body, and soul and alchemy essentially burns out," Ed glanced off in thought, "then both sides get 'ghosts', because we aren't using the souls."

An awkward silence and exchange of glances went around the occupants of the room.

"And three, the doors will break and become permanently shut," Al put his hand down in his lap, "which means we lose our way of life and at some point the other world will become overrun with its own death and fall into anarchy, madness, etcetera."

"Dante isn't going to attempt to breach the Gate until she's had her way with you," Izumi's deepening thoughts came through in her low voice, eyes looking at Edward, "all three of those scenarios are dependent on if she can get anything out of you first."

Ed rolled his eyes, "Yeah I have to think of some way to deal with that…"

"Brother," Al finally aired out a growing concern, "maybe it's safer if we move you away. I mean, if Dante can't reach you, then she can't force any information from you."

Ed's initial response began with a disinterested frown, "I don't want to be on the run, Al; we don't even know if she knows I'm back." After all he had gone through, the adventure he'd taken, Ed was facing the possibility of falling off the preverbal radar and going into hiding – an immensely frustrating thought. He wanted some kind of normalcy that was obviously not forthcoming.

Re-crossing her legs, Izumi sat forwards, "So, say Dante does manage to get what she wants out of you," a situation none of them wanted to face, "in a worst case scenario, what kind of knowledge does Dante take?"

Ed's eyes slipped away to the corner as he felt himself subjugated by his own library of knowledge, forcing everyone in the room to wait on edge before looking over his shoulder to the chalk board. Ed spun the black pointer in his hands, a slew of heavy thoughts weighing him down, before he finally took a deep breath, stepped up to the chalkboard, and wiped it clean with his sleeve. In the anticipatory silence, Ed swiftly picked up a piece of chalk in his right hand – palm still wrapped and slowly healing from the deep wound he'd given himself at the backside of the Gate doors – and Ed wrote out six characters clearly before turning back to his audience.

"We all know what these do, right? We use them in alchemy every day," the pointer tapped on the chalkboard, "These characters are all found beyond the Gate as well. The first three are Greek in origin: Psi, Theta, and Lambda; the next two are Cyrillic: Zhe and Jus; and this last one is Phoenician, it's pronounced something like Qof," fascinated gazes bore down on Ed as he slapped his black pointer into his hand, "we have a set of thirty six alchemy characters that we use in every day practice and forty two in total. On the other side of the Gate the five different alphabets - Cyrillic, Coptic, Runic, Greek, and Phoenician – can be used in alchemy." Ed looked over his audience, fascinated to see the eyes of his peers absorb information… everyone looked so enthralled, "There are approximately 140 characters in total between those five languages beyond the Gate, so that's ninety eight characters we've never either seen or known there was a purpose for before – because a handful of them we already have, we just didn't know it," Ed took a deep breath before he began dropping the first of several bombshells that he was sure they'd been waiting for, "I have them all memorized in historical and alphabetical order… and I understand their principles, but don't know what half of them can actually do even if I tried to put them into practice – because practical alchemy as we know it was never truly possible beyond the Gate."

At first no one reacted, but some level of deep concern slowly soaked into every person's facial expression, ultimately acknowledging the calamities inside Edward's head. It was the first time in the lecture that Ed actually could say he felt uncomfortable standing up at the front of the room. Yes, every one of them should be concerned with the knowledge he possessed – _Ed_ was concerned with the knowledge he had, since the magnitude of it all was still unexplored. Ed had rarely taken into consideration the practicalities of his knowledge quests in the other world because it was simply a useless fantasy there. It was strange for Ed to admit, but it was unfortunate for him that the other world tended to dream big when it came to ancient alchemy – everything he found far exceeded his expectations.

Ed put the pointer down and walked up to a wooden chair that was unoccupied at the front of the room. On one chair leg, he spun it around, then sat down on the backwards chair and folded his arms over the wooden back. Though the eyes that looked at him seemed to toil in the spaces between fascination and concern, Ed offered up an otherworld story that could end up being one person's fantasy and another's nightmare… or perhaps a little of both.

"I saw an alchemical formula carved in massive amounts of stone once – it spanned more than one area in a compound and I don't think anyone in that world could have known there was a connection to them," dangerous words in Ed's voice were almost wistful, "it took me weeks to decipher the purpose for it because it was loaded with obscure characters and markers and who knows what else. What I think I figured out from it was that some ancient alchemist had a thing for 'earth movement', and I'm not even sure I understand myself when I say 'earth movement'." Ed's hands stretched out in front of himself, his fingers twitching as though he was trying to tangibly grasp the concept. There were some things in that other world he'd found that had been so unfathomable until he'd found them, "It was like someone had thought the earth – the ground – was made up of puzzle pieces and this alchemist created a massive formula to find the seams in the rocks and move the pieces," Ed shook his head at his own words, not even looking to his audience – only focussing on his hands. Without seeing it, without standing on it, without saying they'd somehow felt it, there was no way for Ed to describe the childish excitement he felt every time he'd found something in the other world that defied his understanding. "Someone on that side was trying to move entire land masses; not just countries and cities, it was massive pieces of land. It was fantastic and terrifying and nobody there even had the slightest clue what it was… it was just decoration and carvings to them."

How Ed wished someone had been there to experience those moments with him, and not just Al's imaginary shadow – his father wanted very little to do with alchemy beyond the Gate. But by the time Ed had aired out his last syllable, he didn't even have to look up to _know_ everything would be done to keep him out of Dante's reach.

"Edward Elric," Armstrong finally spoke again to assert his presence and made his words absolute, "you will be moved away to a location where Dante will be less able to track you."

Ed sighed.

"I see your dilemma with alchemy," Mustang found something to say that extended beyond his immediate desire to get more details out of Ed's mouth, "you clap your hands and a quarter of Central City has a chance of exploding."

Ed snorted, recalling the warning tone that came from his father shortly before he'd died; Hohenheim telling his son that if he managed to get home, he would be a danger. Even then, Ed didn't dispute that fact, he'd just never conceived of having to deal with it.

"OKAY!" Izumi suddenly stood up and all eyes snapped to her loud outburst. The woman's hands landed on her hips commandingly as dark eyes grabbed the two Elric brothers by their throats, "you boys are done this lecture."

Ed and Al swallowed in unison.

Izumi's right arm snapped out to her side, finger pointed to the open door leading to a hall that fed into the remainder of Mustang's hotel, "But you two aren't done scrubbing this place until it shines."

"Yes Sensei!" the boys snapped to attention, not yet finished with their punishment for the massive headache she accused Ed of causing her.

The barking teacher thumbed down to Mustang, letting Ed and Al sweat bullets, "I will use his white glove to go over every inch this building at 8am sharp tomorrow morning!"

Roy scowled, "You will not…"

Izumi didn't acknowledge his response, "And if you have to sacrifice another good night's sleep to meet your deadline, then so be it."

"Yes Sensei!"

From the back of the room a foreboding presence rose, "If you boys would allow me to impart upon you…"

Ed and Al paled and inched back towards the opened door as Armstrong lumbered towards the front of the room.

"… one of the great Armstrong family traditions for the most effective way to clean sink, urinal, and toilet bowls that has been passed down through our generations!"

While Izumi's hands balanced firmly on her hips and Roy hung his head and sighed, Ed and Al squealed their steadfast refusal of 'no thank you!' and abruptly vanished from the room.

* * *

In the dead of night, the backsides of two brothers hit the cushions of an empty couch hard, each one taking an opposite end – Al throwing his arms over the one side and Ed heaving his legs over the other.

"I don't think I ever cleaned my own house that hard," Ed groaned, his head hitting a cushion and his arms dropping over his face.

"I don't know if there's an inch left that we haven't cleaned," Al buried his face in the fabric arm of the couch.

In synchronous fashion, Ed and Al kicked their slippers off, hearing them lightly thud on the floor.

"I'm going to sleep like a log tonight," Ed groaned, his voice quickly vanishing in behind the noise of officers bustling through the halls.

As the absence of their chatter lingered, Al found himself swaying to a concerning thought that he wanted to voice. Al wished he completely understood why he felt hesitant to ask his brother things – Ed was still Ed, and once they did start talking it was a conversation that never felt like it contained a barrier, and it never really felt like his brother was that much older. Maybe there was a fear of finding out that Ed wasn't completely Ed in some way, and that was what kept Al from freely speaking up. What if Al asked _the one question _that Ed would answer that opened up the storm clouds over their parade? Al didn't know the how, why, or what for to the question, or if it even existed, but he was still wary of it. The younger brother silently wished he could take all his fleeting concerns, roll them up into a ball, and step on them with an oversized armoured foot.

Al frowned and forced his primary concern into words, "Do you think you'll be able to get some sleep tonight?"

Ed had not slept well the last few nights.

"I'd better…" Ed wrinkled his nose.

Al had been woken up by his brother the last two nights.

"… or someone'll exile me to the basement."

Edward had woken the entire floor up the other night, before someone was merciful enough to wake Ed up.

How Ed had explained it to Al was that for some reason or another, because of the type of journey, neither he, nor their father, nor Winry had experienced any dreams in the other world. Sleep was just a black abyss that they fell into for however many hours at night. The way Ed saw it was that he was forced to spend every moment of his existence beyond the Gate, never allowed to dream of being home or escaping the world. That was part of his punishment. The way Al interpreted it was that perhaps the perpetual empty nights of sleep were the only merciful thing that world had subjected his brother to. Never being able to dream of home meant that Ed would never have to wake up and re-live the loss, and never being able to dream meant he never had to be subjected to any of his nightmares.

Now, Edward's mind was free to dream up anything with years worth of fodder.

Al watched his brother take the disasters his sleeping mind conjured up in moderately frustrated strides; there was obviously a staggering amount of embarrassment that Ed scowled at and he barked at anyone making an issue out of it. But Ed had a history of nightmares after their mother's failed transmutation and after Nina's death, so Al at least knew it wasn't an uncommon reaction… at least that was before Ed had turned fifteen and had managed to find a way to shut himself down far enough that he could block it all out. Al wondered if the nightmares were so bad that he couldn't block them or if his brother was actually allowing himself to deal with the bombardment. Al wondered if Winry might know what might be haunting him, but there was no guarantee she did, and if Winry did know, did Al want to dig it all up through her if _Ed_ was having this much trouble with them? Neither one of them had spoken in detail about the events that had transpired to cause Winry to be shot…

What Ed and Al had going for a conversation had faded away. With soggy pant and shirt cuffs, pruned fingers, plus bumps and bruises, the boys silently decided the most prudent course of action was to remain where they were, listening to the unintelligible buzz of military personnel, and relax. No natural light entered this little sanctuary away from the chaos in the main concourse of the hotel – there were no windows – just a meek little light sitting on a table pushed up against the wall out of reach from Al. The longer they sat, unmoving and uninterrupted, the better their ears were able to tune out the hum of people, and sleep was becoming quite tempting.

"Al?" Ed aired out in a rush.

"Hm?" Al wiggled his chin around on the plush couch arm.

"Can I ask you something?"

Al picked his head up. Squaring himself around properly on the seat cushion, Al looked to Ed– laid out on his back next to his younger brother with his legs thrown over the arm of their long seat. Al smiled, "Sure."

"Are you okay having me so much older?" Ed turned more onto a shoulder.

"Yes I am," the response came without forethought or hesitation. Al's shoulders relaxed, his hands clasping in his lap. His head tipped in thought, eyes focussed on the concerned expression on Ed's face, "I think it's gonna take a few weeks at home before I stop expecting to see the younger, shorter you though. I'm always double-taking because my brain tells me I'm not seeing the right you. I'll get over it."

Even before Al had finished his statement, he'd seen the look in his brother's eyes flicker away.

"What?"

"I want this to be over so we can go home…" it was a verbalization of a feeling both brothers silently shared – wasn't it about time they got to move on? Ed paused before adding a quiet afterthought. "I'd like to take a crack at tackling life instead of fighting through everything in the way of life."

Al grinned, "We can start to think about the rest of our lives."

The younger brother watched the look in his older brother's eyes escape from beyond the four walls that surrounded them as he spoke. That look on Ed was new. It was a subtle and subdued look Al hadn't seen on his brother before, because Al didn't think he'd ever heard his brother refer to his own future in any way – Ed was always concerned about somebody else. Al soon suspected Ed had something more to say; he still moved and twitched in ways that had been like his teenage self when there was something he wanted to say. It was far less noticeable now, but still present, and the younger brother knew that if he didn't push and waited long enough…

"I used to think about things sometimes beyond the Gate," Ed sounded so shamed and childish, like he'd been caught doing something and Al was somehow responsible for extracting the confession, "I think for a long while I'd convinced myself I wasn't entitled to much in life."

Edward Elric of days gone by was an alchemist for the people. He was the older brother who did not want to get back his own limbs – they weren't important – but get back his younger brother's body instead. He wanted to get Al's body back. He'd wanted to fix his wrongs. The last thing Ed had dearly wanted for himself, that something he had worked hard to get, that _thing _he had strived stubbornly for nearly a year to find a way to obtain, was something that mourning eleven-year-old boy was told in the most disastrous fashion he could not have: their mother. It was a desire that ruined, damaged, or affected more than just Ed – it touched everyone involved with him and usually hurt them. At more than one point, the repercussions of that desire had cost Ed all that he believed he had left: Al. Edward's selfish desires threatened to leave him all alone. That was the last version of Edward Elric Al had known before he'd reached into the Gate to retrieve him. In a way, Ed's sacrifice to bring Al back finally gave the Gate its chance to inflict the punishment of solitude on Ed that it hadn't been able to the first time around. Al wondered how much time in those five and a half years Ed had spent beyond the Gate alone thinking about his situation and all he'd gone through.

"Now I _have_ these things that I've wanted for years," Ed sounded so surprised to feel such an accomplishment, "and now I'm seeing other things I could want, I'm finding things that I might want, and discovering there are things I didn't know I wanted," Ed's nose twitched, fighting through the urge to drop his voice to an incoherent mumble, "it's a weird feeling."

Al grinned a little wider, "Is it because now you want more?"

At that point Ed stopped and Al figured his brother had decided he'd let his voice run on too long, because the look overtaking Ed's facial expression was clearly infused with discomfort and embarrassment. Talking about himself wasn't something Ed was ever good at, even if Al was the one person Ed felt most comfortable opening up to.

"When you say 'home', you mean Rizembool?" Al asked.

"That's where home is," Ed's response came with a slow, thoughtful nod, "when I thought of home beyond the Gate, that's always where I went," his golden gaze meandered off into the corners, "like lying around the hill that overlooks the valley, or sitting creek-side on the edge of the thicket, or falling asleep with the sunset in the spare room Granny Pinako kept for us."

Al wished his brother hadn't stopped there, but the odd, forceful grin Ed took on overrode the mellowed and thoughtful gaze – like the peaceful, private thoughts of home were suddenly ushered into their drawers again – and Al knew instantly his brother was done talking about himself.

"What do you plan on doing when this is all over?" Ed looked to his brother.

The question threw open the lid of Alphonse's mental toy box, "Grow up!"

Al didn't know how much he'd honestly thought of his future while he was a suit of armour – the future he had beyond reclaiming his body – because Al's future began and ended with that body. Alphonse had divergent futures: one was his future if he was forced to remain in the armour forever, and the other was his life if he'd gotten his body back. Positive thinking reclaimed Al's body, but he didn't want to be disappointed if it didn't happen. The future as a suit of armour was a future Al didn't want to think about, because he wanted to be in his body again. So, like his brother, Al now had the opportunity to open his eyes wide and look to the future.

"I want to go home with you and Winry to Granny Pinako's and grow up!" Al bounced on his seat and pulled his feet underneath himself, "We didn't get to hang around with a lot of kids our age during our search for the Philosopher's Stone, but I did get to watch them when I could," Alphonse slapped on a gleeful expression that made Ed grin, "I want to go to school for a bit and learn new things. I want to see and do what kids my age actually are supposed to do and grow up like everybody else! I want to be a teenager, and see how tall I get and find out what my voice changes into and have a girlfriend and become an adult and go travelling and meet new people and…" Al stopped when he realized Ed was laughing, "… and is that weird?"

"No, Al," Ed tried to corral himself and his laughter, "I think it's fantastic. That's exactly what you should be doing."

Al happily nested himself into the seat cushion, "I spent years watching people around me and seeing how things are done in life, and now I get to do it all - it's going to be fantastic!" Al gave an emphatic, childish, repetitive poke to his brother's shoulder, to which Ed rolled his eyes, "And I'm going to study alchemy, and you're going to help me."

"You have fantastic goals, Al," Ed's legs came down to the floor and he straightened himself properly on the couch, a position that only lasted a minute before he'd sunken down and slouched in the seat, his legs extending as far as he could out in front of himself, "perfect goals."

Al had always known that if and when he was free of the suit of armour he would do everything he could to step back into a normal life, what he hadn't planned for was the do-over of the years he'd spent in the suit of armour. The sudden opportunity to explore all that lost time was a trove of excitement that Al hadn't dreamed he'd get – now he could dream.

Though Ed still grinned at Al's outpouring of energy, the younger of the brothers settled down his own excitement with a sobering thought, "And somewhere in all of that alchemy we'll explore together, we're going to have to find some way to get Brigitte home safely."

Ed cocked an eyebrow curiously, "Brigitte?"

That wasn't the reaction Al was expecting. His expression fell, "You know her… she came with your picture," he narrowed an eye when it was obvious by Ed's confused expression that he didn't know who Al was talking about, "the girl from the other side of the Gate… Brigitte Shmittenhelm."

"Schitten…" Ed suddenly slipped out of his seat and landed on the floor with squawk and a thud, "WHAT?"

* * *

The more hours that went by in Central City – not just the days, but the hours, sometimes minutes – the more Ed realized that when people mentioned that things were dire in the city, he grew to understand they weren't kidding.

Rail transportation had been halted for weeks. Ground transportation wasn't being let into the city at most points. Foot traffic within Central was only safe between certain hours. The common people wanted the government out but if they protested there was a growing risk of being shot in broad daylight – it was more of a military state now than at any point during Bradley's regime. Stores were running low on food and somewhere along the way a rumour had been started that the possibility of a water shortages in some areas were imminent.

Out of all that was going wrong, the only thing Ed wanted was a phone that worked, and it appeared that the telephone system only functioned if and when it wanted to. It had taken nearly four and a half hours before Feury finally was able to establish a line out to Xenotime. Local switchboards outside of the central core worked, it was just a matter of reaching the operators in the out laying areas. When the operator finally connected with the Tlingum residence Ed bolted into Mustang's paper-filled office, shoved aside some work that would never get done, and sat himself down.

Ed snatched up the receiver sitting on Mustang's desk.

And it rang.

And rang.

And rang some more.

Ed had forgotten how much he loathed the ringing telephone. After the hours of frustration, Ed had to restrain himself from snapping the receiver into two.

"Sir, would you like me to try once more?" the female operator at Xenotime telecommunications came over the line after twenty-one rings.

"Yes, please," Ed tried to make sure none of his frustrations leaked out into his voice.

The rings again began, much to Ed's growing impatience, only this time someone answered at the fifth ring.

"Tlingum residence."

"Finally!" Ed bounced up in his seat when a woman's voice came on the other line, "I'm looking to speak with either Maria Ross or Russell Tlingum, is either one of them available?"

"I'm sorry both Lieutenant Ross and Mister Tlingum are out."

Ed frowned, slouching back into the chair, "Do they have a guest with them named Roze Thomas?"

"Yes, but she's stepped out with them as well."

Ed's frown was downgraded into a scowl, "Well, what about the little brother Fletcher?"

"I'm sorry, everyone's out for the day."

Edward sat somewhere between annoyed and moderately disappointed that he'd just gone through all that effort to find out the people he needed to talk to weren't home, "When're they coming back?"

"They left late yesterday for a task, but I don't have their schedule. Would you like me to take a message?"

Ed scoffed – doubtful they'd get through but at least they'd have something. So, Ed needed to compile a subtle message, something that wouldn't set off all the alarms or become gossip material. Ed looked to a story Al had told him the night before, "Sure, tell them to give Ms. Ross' boss a shout about the camera bag we have in Central, we have some new exposures with the film she might want to go over."

"I'll pass that along."

Ed gave a hesitant pause before asking a further, curious question, "Did they take Brigitte with them?"

The woman's voice had a very subdued sound of surprised, "No, Miss Brigitte remained behind."

Ed's brow lifted and a bounce came into his voice "Put her on."

"… Pardon me?"

"Go get her!" Ed barked impatiently into the receiver.

The silence on the phone was negligible and, like Brigitte had been standing in the room the whole time, the telephone in Xenotime was passed off and a confused little voice came on with very nervous English.

"Um… hello?"

Ed's face abruptly twisted like there was someone standing right in front of him to scold, "_I didn't see you with your fingers in your ears when I told you __**not**__ to go to the Thule Hall."_

"_EDWARD!" _Brigitte's squealing voice shrieked into the phone forcing Ed to take it off his ear, "_Oh my God, Edward Elric, really! Where are you? How did you find me? Are my parents with you?_"

Ed's eyes glanced to the side uneasily while Brigitte shot off an endless string of questions. She obviously didn't know where she was – not that there was any way she could have figured it out.

"_I will take my lashes, be expelled from school, and take all the punishment in the world, but I'd just really want to go home. Are you helping me leave?_"

Clearing his throat, Ed again tapped the receiver off his ear while he thought, "_Um, it's gonna be a bit before we can get you out of there and find a way home. I'm kinda out of the way at the moment…_"

"_Well, then I'll come to you! There're people here who can drive – tell me how to get there!"_

"_It's not going to work that way either,_" Ed scratched his free hand through his bangs, "_sit tight for a bit – I just called to make sure you were doing alright."_

"_Well, I'm fine but Edward you should really hurry, there are sorcerers and witches and wizards all over the place - I don't know who I'm supposed to trust."_

Ed laughed and could almost see the displeasure on Brigitte's face through the phone, "_Well, those two boys you're with, the pompous one and his little brother, I'll out them as sorcerers for you."_

"_Well I figured that when I saw them make the trees change colour! I'd thought they were good people until that happened."_

"_Well…_" Ed was going to have to concede this, "_they're good sorcerers and they're going to help you, so they're people you can trust,_" he looked around the office in thought, "_and I know you've met Izumi, she's a good witch too… and Mustang is—_"

"_What about the little girl?_"

Ed raised an eyebrow and ground his teeth down on the inside of his cheek; he was very certain which little girl she meant, "_You mean the girl with the braids?_"

Brigitte hesitated before answering, "_Well, her hair's not in braids right now, but it was when I first met her._"

It took a moment before Ed realized Brigitte's response had thrown him face-first into a mental brick wall – he felt a little dazed. This couldn't possibly be happening; Ed's stomach churned. Maybe his understanding of German was failing now that he was home. Ed pulled in a few slow, deep breaths and his expression began to plummet, "_Is she there?_"

"_She showed up yesterday_," Brigitte sounded thoroughly disapproving of the new company, _"she claps her hands and does the craziest magic I've ever seen. She scares everyone._"

Things weren't just 'bad', they were worse. Ed's heartbeat suddenly kicked into high gear, "_Is she in the room with you?_"

"_Yes, she's watching me talk to you,_" Brigitte answered, "_her servant answered the phone._"

Ed's mind replayed the delighted shriek of his name in Brigitte's voice and ran his hand over his face, "Fuck this…" Ed cursed the chaos that endlessly rained down over his life and made a futile wish for one more day of peace he would no longer get, "_Brigitte, we're going to have a conversation and I don't want you to look at her, okay?_"

"_Okay…_"

His frustrations boiling on high and his blood pressure steadily rising in the heat, Ed took a long, deep breath and tried to put together a situation for Brigitte, "_That little girl is a bad witch, and she's not even a little girl, she's very old and just uses her magic to make you think she's little… do you understand?"_

"_Yes,"_ now the nerves kicked into Brigitte's voice.

"_Don't do that, you have to always act like you don't know something is wrong," _Ed frowned as he tried to organize his thoughts, "_you have to keep an eye her all the time. She has a magic red stone that makes her strong, so if she claps her hands and goes to touch you, I want you to run and run as fast as you can."_

"_Where do I run?"_

"_Away - just far away. When you can't run anymore, you find somewhere to hide until I find you," _Ed put his arms down on the desk and clunked his chin down on the varnished surface, "_You have to act as properly as you can with her. She's a terrifying witch who's a lot stronger than all of us, so you have to play dumb around her and do exactly as she says._"

Brigitte's voice rose with a concern, "_This bad witch chased away Maria and her friends yesterday, are they in danger?_"

"_Yes – but I don't think you are," _Ed made sure the leave some sense of security in the girl – Dante had sent everyone away except Brigitte… that made Brigitte important in some way, "_the bad witch knows who you are and where you're from, so she shouldn't have any reason to harm you. She thinks you're a magic code and that makes you important, very important to her; that's why you're still there with her and you're not hurt._" In Ed's mind, that was the only reason he could think of to explain the situation.

"_Edward… why me?_"

Ed's jaw slowly fell open. Why her? Why Nina? Why anybody? 'Why' was a question Ed didn't like, because why's tended to make the least amount of sense and the reply rarely made anything better.

"_That's just how it happened," _was the best answer Ed eventually gave her.

* * *

Izumi's fingers landed quietly on a door frame, though she could do nothing beyond curse the painful sound of the hinges. Slowly, the woman pulled the door shut while doing everything she could to minimize the sounds. Izumi turned the knob before it reached the latch, silently sealing the door and controlling the release of the knob. Izumi's hands fell away and she dipped her head as she turned into the hall.

"Was their attempt to sanitize this hotel to your satisfaction?" a low voice questioned in the dimly lit hall, "I never saw the final grade."

Izumi looked over to Mustang, "They did an exemplary job."

The officer bobbed his head slowly in approval, cocking an eyebrow and throwing out a greedy question, "Any tips on how to get Ed to behave so obediently? I've never seen him answer anyone's orders quite so well."

Izumi grinned slightly, eyeing the man who'd never managed to obtain authority over the Elric brothers quite like she had. The grin transformed into a smirk and the teacher's feet scraped the floor; Izumi walked past Roy, "Estrogen."

"Ah." With his arms folded, Roy turned and slowly trailed in behind Izumi's path, "Edward is sleeping?"

"Three hours," Izumi stopped and turned the door handle to Alphonse's room, "he got restless at one point, but he just needed something calming to ease him from it."

Izumi entered Al's room before Roy could comment further, and the officer waited in the hall as the teacher quietly made her way through Alphonse's room to check on him. She re-emerged quickly – nothing with Al entered Izumi's list of concerns – and she pulled his door shut again.

"Has Alphonse mentioned any problems sleeping?" Roy asked.

"Al says he's fine," Al looked fine, sounded fine, and came off with a profound increase in confidence – if Izumi wasn't so reluctant to relax her nerves, she wouldn't have checked on Al at all, "the experience at the Gate hasn't adversely affected him as far as I can tell. He's the only one in this building who appears to be getting eight hours every night."

Even those with clear heads didn't manage to get a fully nights' sleep with all the never ending commotion.

With Alphonse's room inspected, Izumi made her way further down the hall. She paid no mind to the officer who observed her actions, not interested in his presence enough to keep the conversation going with him. Izumi's hand landed lastly on the knob to Winry's door; she turned the handled and used her shoulder to push into the room, only to thump into the wood when the door didn't budge. The woman stepped back and gave a confused scowl to the knob.

"Winry asked for some privacy the other night," Roy cleared up the situation, "she's allowed to lock the door."

Izumi wasn't sure if allowing anyone to lock their door was a good idea considering Dante could manufacture the ability to come and go as she pleased, and who knows who else was out there waiting to be sprung on them. The teacher continued to frown her fingers lightly tapped the door knob. She eyeballed the man standing square in the hallway, somewhat uselessly, entirely unsure of his motivation for standing around like this in the dead of night. Rather than simply walk away, Izumi chose to utilize his lingering presence.

Izumi sighed, "So, after all was said and done, Brigitte and Winry were exchanged through the Gate?"

"If what Edward told us earlier in the day holds true, yes," Roy concurred.

Shaking her head, like hearing the explanation from more than one person didn't make it any less profound, Izumi turned up her nose in frustration, "And now Dante has caught Brigitte in the town of sanctuary you sent them all to."

"I don't believe for a second that Dante would have pursued her out that far if her circumstances hadn't changed so drastically. She showed little sign of interest in Brigitte until now," Roy's response had a fair bit more bite to it than Izumi had been expecting – the situation from his perspective was obviously more frustrating than he was outwardly letting on. Then Mustang threw in a deepening concern of his own, "and she has one of my good officers."

"And those boys with Roze," masked in the dim hallway light, Izumi's fists clenched before she threw her arms across her chest, "I explicitly told them to stay with Mrs. Hughes beyond the border."

Izumi felt Roy react to her statement on Gracia Hughes long before the words came to his mouth – she couldn't say the ire in a man's aura caught her attention that often , "Did I ever get the chance to properly discuss that with you—"

"Save it," Izumi waved him off like the boiling rage of a man had no affect her, "save your breath for one of the hundred other more important things we have going on right now. Don't keep your panties in a knot because you think I'm stepping on your pedicure."

Roy's fingers twitched with the urge to light the entire hallway and all its contents on fire.

Izumi hopped onto another train of thought before the prior one could cause any damage, "With Diana gone, Dante might trying to find some use for Brigitte in her place, which is probably why she headed out there."

Roy's temperature slowly lowered, "That was the consensus."

Izumi nodded in agreement, "We don't have time to get out there and prevent anything before Dante will have moved on again. Even if Brigitte speaks another language, Ed said his name isn't pronounced much differently in her tongue, so we can be almost certain Brigitte gave his return away. Dante will head back to Central and we have to make sure she comes nowhere near Ed – not with the knowledge he has and the power Dante can use."

That arrangement was something Roy had begun working on in the evening, "Major Armstrong has been making arrangements with his family up north to have Ed sent to the mountains – I'd say that'd be Dante's least desirable destination at the moment since Drachma has been harassing the border and is profoundly miffed at the political office she's controlling."

"You honestly want to send them within spitting distance of a potentially escalating battle zone?" Izumi harshly questioned Roy's logic.

"Where else do I send them?" Roy scowled, "you lured Dante's eyes west when you ushered off Gracia and Elysia, I got wind that men were sent south to Rizembool to talk to Mrs. Rockbell when Havoc was being accused of indecencies against her granddaughter, and Dante has a long standing love affair with the eastern quadrant of the country. Dante's only involvement with the north has been sending us to do something to piss Drachma off."

Izumi scoffed, yet offered nothing to counter his assessment of the situation.

"They can go north but stay south enough of the border to be out of the way. We have towns and hamlets that they can lodge in," Roy spoke with an inarguable tone.

Again, Izumi offered nothing to counter his logic, "You know you're going to have to send Al and Winry too," was finally her concession, "Al won't leave Ed and we obviously can't send Winry to Rizembool."

"Lieutenant Havoc and Officer Falman are going to accompany them north," Roy responded promptly, something that seemed to draw out some of Izumi's frustrations.

"You have this all planned out, don't you?" Izumi finally scowled at him.

"I have to have this all planned out," Roy responded tartly, "you think I just run around this capital city without knowing exactly where everyone is, what the missions are on each division, the time frame for execution, what exactly I'm looking to accomplish, and how I'm going to pull that off with the least amount of pedestrian consequence?"

Izumi dearly wanted to reply with a yes to the military dog, but was more than certain he was holding onto as much power and control over the situation as he could. Unable to counter his retort with nothing more than some childish backhanded response that was beneath her, Izumi lost the argument by changing the subject.

"What are you doing up here standing around in the hall talking with me for?" Izumi asked abruptly, "if you're so busy being an active little puppy, why are you standing around?"

"Because it's my bedtime," Roy responded with a haughty perk in his voice and it stood a few of Izumi's hairs on end, "and I am free to use my bedtime in whatever manner I see fit."

Izumi scoffed, wondering how a man could hold the kind of look in only one eye that gave her a childish urge to want to claw it out, "You thought it would be best to waste your bedtime bothering me?"

The reply was brisk, "I thought it would be best to waste the first few minutes of my bedtime to look around my upper most floor and make sure that, at least for some point in the night, everything was sound and at peace – you've taken care of that for me it seems."

Izumi watched the wind fly out of her sails. She didn't like to lose a verbal sparring match, but if Mustang had shown up only to check on his cared-for occupants, she couldn't condemn him for that. The teacher's shoulders fell, "Everyone's fine," Izumi let her arms drop to her sides and she walked down the hall, stepping past Mustang as she moved, "since my bedtime doesn't feel like its forthcoming, I'm going to sit in on Ed for a bit."

The noise Mustang made almost sounded like a laugh, "Does he know you're babysitting him like this?"

"I have no idea," Izumi shrugged, turning the handle to Edward's door, "but there are some tricks you learn about kids when they're younger that can help you slip under their radar even when they're older. If he complains about it, I'll stitch his lips shut."

Mustang cocked the eyebrow over his good eye and looked to Izumi over his shoulder, "Do those tricks require estrogen to learn as well?"

"Yes."

In the wake of her swift reply, but before vanishing into Ed's room, Izumi kept an eye on Mustang as he slowly made his way towards the staircase, walking through the dimmed lighting of the hallway without any further response.

* * *

As far as Brigitte could figure out, 'Nina' had initially been this little girl with a servant and the both of them pestered her. When she'd first woken up in this backwards world, she was on a dark floor with the girl and her caretaker, and from that point forwards Brigitte had felt something like a puppy they'd been trying to train. The whole situation was thrown on its head when a lady named Maria had shown up in costume and kidnapped her… at least, that's what Brigitte had originally thought was going on. All of it had made no sense; she'd been abducted in the first place and taken away to some British colony that was presumably much closer to the equator, so to be re-kidnapped by another sect within this far away world made even less sense than kidnapping in the first place. But, no one had made her cook or clean, wash linens or chase away cobwebs; no, Brigitte had been clothed, fed, modestly entertained, nicely treated, and thoughtfully taken care of, which really shot a number of holes in her whole kidnapping theory.

The world made no sense.

And for some reason they all wanted to know about Edward Elric – if this golden-eyed person was so important, why did they kidnap _her _and not him? Then life made less sense when men attacked Maria's cottage and they all had to run. It made even less sense when the magic started happening. Brigitte was forced to update her only logical scenario: she'd been kidnapped by British sorcerers and taken to their training colony for some reason yet to be determined… but it couldn't be good, whatever the reason. Maybe this was like Hansel and Gretel and she was Gretel without Hansel; Brigitte spent a few days not eating much.

So, Maria Ross, the only woman who she was one hundred percent certain was not going to suddenly pull magic out of her bag, collected Brigitte plus the dark skinned woman who came out of nowhere, and they drove off in the middle of the night.

It had taken days to get where they'd needed to be because of this, that, and the other thing, but the city they came upon was tucked away in a hillside and was a lot lower key than how active the other city had been. In this city she was re-introduced to two blonde boys that she'd seen briefly in the previous city. For a few days at least, things felt kind of normal.

And then Nina came back into the picture. Brigitte hadn't known really who or what this little girl and her entourage were all about until Ed phoned the next day, and neither had Russell and Fletcher's servants – they had mistakenly let Nina in when her party had walked up to the front doors and rung the doorbell. Then came the outburst of rage from the older brother, followed by an explosion of magic, and then the building went into lockdown. After a good deal of confusion, all of the faces Brigitte was familiar with vanished and she was left with Nina, who seemed perpetually angry. Nina appeared to want Brigitte's company for no logical reason, and it was the only point in time during her entire adventure where it actually felt like a kidnapping.

Come here.

Stand there.

Carry this.

Hold that.

Since all the adults in the room were taking orders from the little girl, Brigitte took it as a clue to behave and do as she was told. Her conversation with Edward cemented her good-girl behaviour.

In the afternoon that followed her conversation with Ed, Brigitte had been taken on a walk, directed to remain three steps behind Nina, and had been instructed to carry a jewel box that weighed next to nothing. They'd walked the hall for hours, visited thirty different rooms, until the pair finally found another closed door to open. What made this thirty-first room more distinguishable than the first were the two security guards and the key Nina needed to get in.

"Come inside, Brigitte. I need that box," Nina summoned Brigitte forward and she sauntered past the guards who didn't even glance her way.

Brigitte scampered in after Nina and looked around the rounded room with no windows but astoundingly bright lights in the ceiling. It looked like it was supposed to be a bedroom, but it had been warped – there was bedroom furniture but no closet, a bed but no sheets, rounded walls with no corners. Brigitte looked ahead to the body of a person curled up on the bed but glanced down again when Nina walked up and flipped open the jewellery box in her hands. Brigitte's brow rose at a blood red pendant on a golden chain seated atop the pure white cotton in the box and a clear vile of matching red dust next laying to it. Nina picked out the thin vile and twisted the cap off.

"Just a little…"

Brigitte watched Nina produce a handkerchief and thinly spread a layer of red dust over it.

"That's good."

The vile was capped, returned to the box, and Nina walked up to the bed, climbing atop the mattress. Brigitte glanced down to the open box, her eyes fixating on the stunning colour of the red jewel attached to a thin gold chain; she'd never seen anything so profoundly, powerfully red. It was enthralling.

_She has a magic red stone that makes her strong…_

Brigitte startled at a handclap and looked up when the figure on the bed jolted; Nina was leaning over the body and holding the handkerchief over the person's face. The struggle barely lasted a few seconds – the body on the bed simply had no strength for a fight.

"That's better, just breathe it in for a few seconds," Nina hovered for a moment before withdrawing, turning away and slipping herself off the bed, "our conversation today will be so much more productive this way and much less of a struggle for both of us."

Nina walked back up to the box Brigitte held and helped herself to the red pendant, linking the golden clasp behind her neck and then tucking the entire pendant away under her blouse – the wondrous object vanished from sight. Nina shut the box and smiled up at Brigitte who only replied with a nervous frown.

Nina turned back to the bed.

"Would you sit up please, Maria."

Brigitte nearly dropped Nina's jewelry box when Maria Ross sat up on the bed with a pale, empty expression on her face, deeply reddened cheeks, and hazy eyes that captured nothing.

"I have a few more things for you to answer today," Nina's voice suddenly echoed in the room, "so make this painless: put your hands on your knees."

It took a few moments, but gradually – hesitantly – Maria obliged. The subsequent clap of Nina's hands was deafening; Brigitte staggered back a few steps, rolling the jewel box into her arms and pinning it to her chest. Everything moved so slowly.

_If she claps her hands and goes to touch you…_

'Something' will happen.

Nina reached out and Brigitte dropped the jewel box. When the corner cracked on the ground, Brigitte acted on the first thing she thought of – she screamed.

Nina spun around.

Brigitte screamed until her lungs were empty and her chest hurt from it. She coughed as she looked back at the bewildered little girl with some kind of terrifying power no one had explained, but the witch's hands seemed to hang uselessly at her sides.

"_The ceiling is white and the sky is blue and it's all falling down!_" Brigitte kicked the jewel box and backed herself up, her body thumping against the door – she didn't care what came out of her mouth, no one would understand her anyways, "_there are skeletons in the closets and monsters under the beds. They're going to break everything!_"

"What is your problem!" Nina hollered.

For someone so small, Brigitte was startled by how much booming rage Nina could project; her heart pounded. Brigitte looked around madly before suddenly cutting across the room and scrambling into the space between the night stand at the side of the bed and the wall. Brigitte wedged herself in, sat down on the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and looked back out into the room at Nina's flabbergasted reaction.

"_You don't even have a closet in here, but that just means the skeletons you have are the worst._"

"Wha—" Nina looked at her hands in disgust, then to Maria, back to Brigitte, and down to her hands again, like she didn't know what she would do next, "you… you stupid girl!"

Brigitte paled and curled up tight when Nina finally stormed forwards, the German girl's eyes pinching and ears listening for a frightening handclap. A handclap never came, but the hard toe of Nina's dress shoe kicked her in the side of her thigh. The angry witch kicked her four or five times with chirping screams of frustration before Brigitte reached out to try and push her away. Nina's hands flew in and grabbed Brigitte's hair, trying to yank the girl out into the centre of the room, all the while attempting to inflict damage with her feet. Brigitte scrambled along the floor, trying to grab the hands pulling her hair, but she ended up grabbing Nina at her waist instead, and Brigitte again tried to shove the raging child away.

Brigitte shrieked and recoiled when her hands sunk unnaturally into Nina's body, though her own startled sound was drowned out by the scream of pain the little witch made. Brigitte was released and she scrambled back against the wall, watching as Nina wrapped her arms around her stomach and staggered away.

"This body…!" Dante choked.

Brigitte's thoughts were momentarily captured by the strangest odour seeping into the room.

"I lost my concentration… I need my focus!" childish rage erupted again, "and I need to heal this body _again."_

Nina threw her piercing eyes over her to Brigitte, fear nailing the girl against the wall. Dante only stared down Brigitte for a moment before she stormed through the room, kicked the jewel box to the door, picked the box up again when she got there, and slammed the door in a tantrum as she left.

The wrathful little girl left and the air slowly began to clear. Brigitte sat in the corner for a few silent moments, waiting to see if Nina would return, but once the sound of footsteps vanished and all she could hear was the buzz from the blaring overhead lights, Brigitte pulled herself out of the corner.

Standing up, Brigitte winced and rubbed her sore leg and hip. Her focus wasn't on these new bruises though – Brigitte looked over to the bed, nervous to see Maria tipped over and fallen on her side atop the mattress. Brigitte carefully walked around the bed, slowly making her way to the side Maria was facing.

"Maria?"

Brigitte climbed onto the bed and hid her knees beneath herself. She could hear Maria breathe, she could see her empty eyes stare off without purpose, and Brigitte put her hand down on the woman's bare arm, shaking it a little – she was very warm to the touch, like a person with a fever, "Maria?"

Nothing came for a reply.

Brigitte reached up and patted the unresponsive woman on her cheek once, then twice, and a third time just a bit harder, "Maria?"

For a moment Brigitte watched the look in the officer's eyes come into focus and capture the room; it looked something like delight over the successful scale of the world's tallest mountain – it was full of exhaustion. She didn't move her body, but Maria smiled before the moment faded and she closed her eyes.

"_NO_," Brigitte shrieked and jerked Maria's arm, "_no no no what did the witch do to you! She did something to you, didn't she?_" Brigitte looked frantically around the blindingly bright room, "_I need someone to help you. I need to go get help._"

Brigitte slid off the bed and fixated on the door. She didn't know how to contact Edward, or where the two brothers from this city were, or where the dark skinned woman had gone. Brigitte clasped her hands over her mouth and pinched her eyes, trying to think about what she was supposed to do next.

"_I'll go get you help,_" Brigitte nodded to herself, looking towards the door again, "_I'll bring someone who can help, I promise._"

The girl from the other side of the Gate spun on her toes and ran from the room where the ancient witch with the face of a child used the red stone and red powder that Edward Elric had warned her about to harm the only person Brigitte could safely say she trusted.

* * *

To Be Continued…

* * *

A/N:

- If memory serves me right, I was pretty bad with the thank yous and replies on the reviews for last chapter... school likes to send me overwhelming amounts of work without warning that kidnaps me for weeks at a time (though I much prefer the stress of meeting a deadline as opposed to the stress of studying for a test). So thanks to those who R&R'd... :D few new readers too. Hope everyone keeps enjoying... sorry if school is slowing me down!  
- If you head over to the LJ version of the chapter ( http : / yuuki . livejournal . com / 119568 . html ) you can see the sketchy storyboardish thumbnails I did for the opening section in the chapter :D (tis a shame FFN doesn't allow art inserts)  
- Oh Maria Ross D: you are one of my favourite characters…  
- Ed had never thought Brigitte had crossed over the Gate, he'd always thought she'd died or gotten sucked up by the Gate or something in the process of bringing Winry over. He had no reason to think she'd gone through because he had no way of fully understanding what had happened.  
- Something I find endearing about Al is that although he has fears and insecurities (like talking to his brother about important things after such a change) he's a strong enough character that he'll fight through them and speak anyways, rather than shy away.  
- In the opening bit, Ed is talking about moving large land masses. He is referring to plate tectonics, but I left Ed unaware of the concept of tectonics. Our world didn't accept tectonics until the 60s and continental shift wasn't coined until the 20's. The FMA world doesn't seem like a world that would be looking into a science like that quite yet either. Ed's ultimately baffled by what he discovered. The boy can't know everything!


End file.
